The Rift
by JanSuch
Summary: Continuation of Society of Vampires. Helen and Nikola argue about something important to both of them, giving a spider plotting in her web the opportunity to instigate her plan to destroy the Sanctuary.
1. Chapter 1 The Rift Opens

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Sanctuary or the Sanctuary characters, and I'm making no profit from this.

Dr. Susan Petrocelli was a respected medical researcher. She also had a plan to commit murder.

Of course that wasn't the name she had been born with, or even the name she used four years ago. Then she had been shorter, red-haired, and walked with difficulty using a cane; and she had been an essential member of the Cabal. But unlike most of her co-workers who had been killed after the attack on the Sanctuary, she had survived, because she had been prepared.

To her, the Cabal's operation had been mostly a success. She had brought out all the latent Abnormal DNA in Ashley Magnus and successfully cloned it into five others. She had altered the minds of the five clones completely to her satisfaction, and had come very close with Ashley. Only when Ashley faced her mother had her conditioning failed; before that she had destroyed and killed to order. If only the Cabal hadn't rushed her work.

But when the last attack had failed and the Cabal's super-vampires had been killed, only "Susan" had been prepared. She had simply walked out of her laboratory and driven away to a nearby garage. There, she had previously stowed another vehicle and a complete new identity. She had abandoned her clothes, purse, cell phone and cane and dressed in different style clothing stored in the trunk of the second car along with a purse complete with pre-paid phone, driver's license, credit cards, and cash. She had put on a light brown wig and a pair of built up special shoes that made her two inches taller and reduced her limp to the extent she didn't require a cane. The cane had just been something her enemies could focus on that she could throw away in an instant.

As she had driven away in the second car, an anonymous gray sedan, she had pushed the button on a small remote and within minutes the garage was burning fiercely. She had driven only twenty miles and stopped at a motel using her new identity. In her room she had used the hair dye that matched the wig she had been wearing, and disposed of the wig on the next day's drive to a city hundreds of miles away. If anyone wanted to find the Cabal doctor that had changed Ashley Magnus, they were going to have a very difficult time.

In the end, John Druitt and Nikola Tesla had slaughtered and destroyed the Cabal with brute force and done her the favor of obliterating any possible remaining traces that could have led them to her.

She had rented an apartment, found a building for her lab, and lived peacefully for years, establishing her reputation as a legitimate medical researcher. Then, very cautiously, she had made contact with a security guard who had retired from the Cabal before the Sanctuary incident. He was still loyal, and knew others who had escaped and were still loyal as well, including several Abnormals.

When thousands of Abnormals had emerged from underground, it was a simple matter to have three of her loyal Abnormals insert themselves into the hollow earth invasion force and allow themselves to be taken to the Abnormal camp. When Sanctuary personnel had rescued them from SCIU, the three along with many others had gone for safety to the new underground Sanctuary. Two had stayed as permanent residents, one had moved back to the surface after the worst of the danger had passed; but he still went back to the Sanctuary to visit his "friends" occasionally, and each time he returned to the surface he gave her every tidbit of information the two moles could produce. It made it very easy for Dr. Petrocelli to keep track of everything that her enemies did.

Druitt was gone, perhaps dead, but he was just a pawn anyway. Helen Magnus had directed the defense of the Sanctuary network, and she had been the only thing that had foiled Ashley's conditioning. And Nikola Tesla was the only one who could have crafted the weapon that killed her prized super vampires. She owed them both, and at long last she could see a clear route to making them pay for destroying her creations and the Cabal as well. Oh yes, they were going to pay, and pay dearly.

Her organization wasn't large or wealthy, but she had created her laboratory specifically with her revenge in mind, and she had guards and assistants enough. Her plan was ready, all she needed was opportunity. She was patient; she would wait.

/

Nikola had never been so happy in his life; he had the two things he desired most- Helen Magnus and a secure place to work. Plus he was king of the vampires, but that had ended up being more of a chore than a pleasure. And Helen was nearly always in a good mood these days. Of course they couldn't keep up the pace of their first night together, but over the last few months they had been almost always there for each other.

They spent nearly every evening together drinking fine wine, talking about the past, interesting books they had read, Sanctuary projects or the vampire society. Nights they spent making love or cuddling depending on how tired Helen was, and sleeping comfortably entwined in Helen's bed. Days they both had their own work, but they were in the same building and sometimes they would take a break for a walk in the garden, or just to consult about some issue.

Sometimes Nikola worked on his projects until the wee hours of the morning, and crawled into bed carefully so he didn't wake Helen. Sometimes she had to take short trips to a conference or a meeting with government representatives, but she was rarely gone more than a day or two.

Twice Nikola had had to go back to Romania and underground to the vampire society he ruled. Well, Queen Ana ruled in his absence, but they communicated regularly.

The first time was to help them set up a communications network; the vampire scientists just couldn't get it to work right no matter how much advice he gave them, so eventually he just got on a plane and went and did it himself.

The second time was more serious. A newly freed human had stood up for her rights with some old-fashioned vampires and they had broken her arm and clawed her face. The vampires were arrested, but when no trial ensued some humans had rioted. The vampire Guard was trying to use restraint in dealing with them, but the situation was deteriorating and Ana begged him to come. When he had arrived the situation was about the same except the humans were engaging in a sit-in with signs advocating their free human rights, and many of the human slaves had severely slowed down their work in protest.

Nikola dressed up in his fanciest king regalia including a diamond coronet that Ana gave him. He had two big ornate chairs put on the dais in the main cavern, and surrounded himself with Ana, High Lords and guards, and had the human leaders of the riots brought before him.

He read them the law; human grievances were to be taken to the courts like anyone else's. Had anyone pressed charges, gone to a judge, or High Lord Dramelin? No? Then what were they protesting? Riots and deliberate work disruption were illegal too. He gave the four of them whopping big fines, which they couldn't pay; the two who were slaves had the fines added to their purchase price, the two who were free were indentured until they had worked the fines off.

He addressed the muttering human crowd. "The laws are here to protect you, but they are not effective unless you follow them too. Riots are illegal and anyone instigating or leading a riot or work slowdown will be punished. You want justice for an attack on a free human by vampires; that's fair, justice is for everyone, but you will only get justice if you obey the law. Next time, anyone who starts a riot will be fined double."

Then he had the offending vampires brought out. They had been arrested after the incident, but no trial had been held, partly because no one had filed a complaint, and partly for their own protection from the angry humans.

He questioned them, and both human and vampire witnesses until he was sure they were guilty. One had actually done the injury, the other two had failed to take any action to stop him. He fined all three at the same rate as the humans, and had the attacker publicly apologize to the woman he had injured; it was humiliating for the vampire with humans watching and a good deterrent. In addition the attacker was sentenced to one year on the tunnel crew at half pay and reduced to a Three. His buddies got three months each and were reduced to bottom Fours. Tunnel work was dirty and hard, and right now the crews were being driven relentlessly to complete the necessary improvements to accommodate electric vehicles.

He told the rest of the humans to go back to work, and any more nonsense and he would raise their purchase price schedule; and next time, just follow the law. They went back to work, somewhat mollified by the fact that the vampires had been punished. And none of them wanted to be seen as a leader and be fined so much they might never be able to buy their freedom or lose the freedom they had worked so hard for, albeit temporarily.

Nikola wasn't sure he had done the right thing, but he hadn't wanted to stay a week and go through a trial. But apparently the law needed work. Once the vampires had been arrested an investigation should have taken place and a trial should have happened. He talked to Rene who agreed to make some tweaks to the law, but also make sure the judicial bureaucracy had procedures in place to handle legal questions involving free humans; the law was only as good as its implementation, and the implementation had been poor. And the human population needed to understand their responsibilities too, so there would have to be public lectures or something on the subject.

He talked to Ana about a few more things while he was there, and she mentioned adding a robe and maybe a scepter to his king outfit. Nikola shuddered a little inwardly, but gave her permission to tog him out however she pleased. He didn't care for it, but pomp and glitter impressed some people so it could be useful. Vampires in particular seemed to like it, although he himself appreciated quality in his clothing over flash- usually.

He stayed a couple more days to make sure all would remain quiet. He spent an evening in the bar hobnobbing with the lords; the bar was now open three nights a decday. Both High and Low Lords were frequenting the place, and Kammick was head bartender. He seemed much happier than he had been in Lab Two and had been promoted to a bottom Five.

Several thousand acres of land had been purchased at the estate's surface entrance, and vampire engineers were working on bringing some of the underground water to the surface there for agriculture and supplying blood-production herds. A trailer had been set up for the Sanctuary representatives and a road was being built to connect the current road to the tunnel entrance. Nikola checked over the plans for the water diversion and found them adequate.

Nikola returned to the Sanctuary pleased with the progress being made, but also sure that the road to human freedom there was not going to be a smooth one. A lot of attitudes and preconceptions were going to have to change, and that would just take time and a firm hand.

He got back to the Sanctuary early in the morning. He'd napped on the plane so as soon as he got back he went to work on his latest invention. He didn't see Helen as he walked through the halls; he was sorry not to see her, but it was better if she didn't see him going down to the subbasement. He wasn't sure if she would approve of his latest experiment, and he wanted to be able to demonstrate it to her when he told her about it.

But he had called her from the plane to let her know he was on the way back, so after a few hours she went looking for him. She popped into the lab he shared with Henry, but only Henry was there.

"Henry, have you seen Nikola, he should be back by now."

Henry kept working. "Nope, haven't seen him."

"I'm starting to get worried. He should have been back hours ago."

"Well maybe he's down . . . somewhere . . . you know, got delayed."

Henry was terrible at keeping secrets, and Helen instantly knew he was keeping something from her. "Henry, what do you know? Where's Nikola?"

Henry squirmed a little. "Well he didn't actually say I'm not supposed to tell, and I guess you should know anyway. He's got a room down in the subbasement he's been working in; he might be there."

"Doing what?"

Henry shrugged. "Beats me. He just breezes in, grabs a few things and off he goes."

Nikola hadn't said anything to her about working in the lower level, and lately they had been talking a lot. So it wasn't that he hadn't had time to say anything; whatever it was he was actively hiding it. And when Nikola started hiding things, alarms went off in her head. She charged downstairs and began searching the halls. She came around a corner just in time to see Nikola coming out of a door.

"Nikola!"

He stopped and looked guilty. She strode up to him and asked "What's in there?" gesturing toward the door.

"Ahh, just an experiment."

Helen headed for the door but he quickly stepped in front of her. "You can't go in there."

"You were just in there."

"I'm a vampire, I'm resistant to radiation."

Radiation? Good lord, now what. "Tell me. Now."

"Okay, I have a small . . . a very small rift node in there."

She was horrified. "How could you? We had this discussion before. You know you're disturbing the creatures on the other side. Why would you do this?"

"I fixed that. I have a membrane that expands when the node is on blocking anything above atomic-sized particles from crossing over. It gives me an area of the rift about the size of a large closet to work in with no chance of an oogly-googly beastie coming through. The only downside is it does have a tendency to trap and reflect radiation back into the room."

"Nikola the rift is dangerous. And with a membrane you can't be pulling enough energy to create your power company anyway, can you? So there's no point to it. Turn it off and dismantle it."

"I'm a scientist. I'm trying to understand the Praxian technology; I can't do that without understanding the rift."

"And what about the rest of us? Are you spreading poisonous radiation throughout the Sanctuary? How far does the rift field extend, and is the node stable?"

"I have it under control. I have the room sealed and shielded, and a decontamination chamber right inside the door. The rift field and the radiation is contained completely in the room, and I have titanium rods in place so I can shut the node down whenever I want."

"You spent four billion dollars on your node at SCIU, how much have you spent on this? That much titanium alone would cost . . ."

"You had it in stock. You had a lot of things in stock, I didn't go over my $50,000 limit."

"Nikola, you knew I wouldn't approve of this, but you did it anyway. Why? And don't give me any nonsense about being a scientist; there are plenty of other things you could study."

"But nothing with this kind of potential. Look, when that Cthulhu thing dragged Henry off to its lair, it went from point A to point B without passing through the space in between, and so did I when I went after him, and so did you and Adam. I'm learning how to tune the node frequency and still have a stable node powered by energy from the rift."

Helen just shook her head at him, not comprehending.

"Aiming my reentry point in the cavern from one node was very difficult. Adam had predetermined exit points, but I'm trying to do something a little bit different. If there were multiple nodes tuned to slightly different frequencies, it would be possible to connect any two by matching the frequencies and you could walk in to one node and out the other; instant transportation, and distance is irrelevant. I'm going to put the airlines out of business; and you have to admit the way they treat their customers these days they richly deserve to be put out of business."

"So you're just repeating what Adam did. Nikola, he destroyed Praxis."

"No, I've made significant improvements and I'm not using it for time travel. All I need is some way to shield the passage between two nodes but it's a little tricky physically when we're outside the laws of physics. But a shield would exclude the radiation from the interdimensional event horizon as well and make it commercially viable."

"Nikola, I'm sorry but it's just not worth it. The amount of energy and radiation that's being generated in there could destroy the Sanctuary if anything went wrong. You must dismantle it."

"Helen, this is the biggest opportunity mankind has ever had! We could put a node on the moon, or on Mars, or on a planet orbiting a distant star. We don't need impossible faster-than-light ships or generation ships to explore outer space. Send an unmanned rocket with a node wherever you want to go, and a few years or decades later you can just walk there from earth in an instant. Take rockets and more nodes through the first node and sent them out and in a century or two you can travel to multiple planets; in five hundred years people could be all over this arm of the galaxy. You know, just like Star Gate, although I haven't quite figured out how to get that cool-looking water effect."

She understood now, she really did, and she hated to crush him but it was too dangerous, she couldn't allow it. "I'm really very sorry, but my decision stands. The radiation is dangerous, the rift field is dangerous, and if that node goes out of control there would be nothing left of the Sanctuary but a smoking hole."

"I'm not going to lose control of it. The odds of something like that happening are five percent, tops, and the energy involved is far less than the one I had at SCIU. It wouldn't go beyond the room, all shielded, remember?"

"There's no way to be sure of that. And if you were in the room at the time, would you survive?"

Nikola looked uneasy. "In that confined space, probably not. But it's a risk I'm willing to take, and anyway nothing is going to happen."

Helen was shocked. At any time over the last few weeks she could have lost him, and she hadn't even been aware of it. "Shut it down and dismantle it."

Nikola just stood there looking at her in dismay. "You can't mean that. Can't you see how important this is?"

"I do mean it. Maybe we can find someplace else and a safer way you can work on this, but not here and not with you in danger."

"I thought you understood who I am, what I do. I can't stop experimenting just because there's danger. Scientific progress has always come at a cost. I thought you loved me, all of me including the scientist part."

"I do love you, but I still cannot allow you to endanger everyone just to tweak Adam's work, and you have no way of knowing if your membrane will prevent further incursions or not." _We've only just found each other,_ _I can't lose you_. "I know you mean well, Nikola, you would never deliberately harm any of us, but my job is to protect everyone here. I've spent my life doing this job, it's who _I _am. Dismantle it."

"I am not just tweaking his work, what I'm doing is important, can't you see that?"

"I see that what you're doing is dangerous, and simply not worth the risk. For the last time, Nikola, I'm giving you a direct order as a Sanctuary employee. Shut down the node and dismantle it.

Nikola dropped his head and blinked rapidly. He struggled to speak for a moment, then he got out a pained "Okay." He added resentfully "You're the boss."

"How long will it take you?"

Nikola's head was still down. "Not long. I can have the node down and disconnected in an hour, but it'll take days to take it all apart and remove the shielding and everything."

"Henry can help you with that, can't he?"

Nikola nodded, still not looking at her.

"Good. I'll send him down. Oh, and there's a staff meeting this afternoon at two. Please be there."

He didn't acknowledge her, but she knew he heard her. He went back into the room as she left.

She stopped at the lab and told Henry that Nikola was dismantling his experiment in the subbasement, and to please assist him. Henry nodded and went off to see what he could do.

At two, Helen held her meeting. Will and Henry came a little early, and Nikola walked in just at two and took a chair rather than stand by her side as he usually did. Biggie's presence hadn't been required.

"Gentlemen, we have a relatively simple collection operation. A warehouse has been abandoned because of a foul odor and scurrying large tailless rats. It's not really rats, of course, but appears to be a nest of kodors. I suppose they hitched a ride in some cargo and decided to make the warehouse their home. They have teeth and claws, but they are not aggressive; their most potent weapon is their stench. In the wild they dig burrows and eat insects and small animals; their smell drives away predators. The people at the warehouse attempted to capture them with rat traps and then poison them with rat poison. Of course they failed since kodors aren't rats, and they have had to temporarily abandon the structure due to the smell."

Will asked "So how are we supposed to capture them? We can wear masks against the odor, but what do we do, bait them?"

"They are really far too clever for that, and it would take days even if we could find something that would lure them. No, I'm sending Nikola to frighten them and drive them to you."

Will glanced at Henry who was looking at the floor shyly. "Why not Henry? He can be pretty scary when he wants to be."

Helen replied "Henry is going to be staying home for the next few months. I believe Erika is getting near to her due date, and Henry should be here when his child is born."

Will grinned and lightly punched Henry's arm. "That's great! Why didn't you tell me?"

Henry smiled sheepishly. "Erika doesn't want a fuss, and it'll probably be at least a month or two yet, so, you know, I could go, but the Doc won't let me."

Nikola had been eyeing Helen angrily. "Really, you want me to be a sheepdog to a bunch of rodents?" he asked sharply.

Helen gave him an apologetic look. "They're not rodents, and sorry, but yes, it's the quickest way. They're not used to predators being around them and all you'll have to do is vamp and drive them to the capture area. Will and an assistant will set up netting to guide them into the cages. The whole operation should take only a few hours. If you leave in the morning you should be back within 24 hours."

Nikola sulked until Helen ended the meeting. He strode out immediately followed by Will but Helen stopped Henry on the way out.

"Henry, a moment? Can you give me progress report on the rift node, please?"

"It's turned off and we've got the major components apart. We're disassembling the larger modules now, we'll have that mostly done today and I can finish up tomorrow. I'll decontaminate everything as I take it out, and then I'll decontaminate the room before I disassemble his decontamination door unit and strip the shielding. It shouldn't take more than two or three days. Do you want us to pack it for shipping?"

Helen hesitated. She had mentioned trying to find another place for him to continue the experiment, but she doubted there was any way for him to work on using the rift for transportation without endangering himself. Well, it could be completely broken down later. "Yes, that will be fine, but mark the boxes clearly and keep them under lock and key for now. How's Nikola taking it?"

"I think he's really hot under the collar. He hasn't said an unnecessary word; mostly he won't even look at me. That membrane he created is amazing; I've never seen anything remotely like it. It's too bad, I would have liked the chance to work with that set up he had myself."

"You know it's too dangerous."

"Yeah, sure, I guess. But it's fascinating stuff, I mean the potential is amazing."

"Thank you Henry, and in the future, if Nikola starts acting oddly, please speak up so it doesn't go this far again."

"Yeah, he always acts oddly and he doesn't confide in me. I figured he was confiding in you, you two are . . . well I thought you knew all about it. How am I supposed to know in the future if you two are talking to each other or not? Besides, I'm not a tattle-tale."

"Yes, I understand, I'm sorry Henry; go back to your work. Nikola is my problem not yours." She was more flustered than Henry had seen her in a long time. Well, living with Nikola Tesla could do that to a person.

Helen waited for Nikola in her sitting room all evening with one of her most prized bottles of wine, but he didn't come. Disappointed, she left it unopened and went to bed alone. This was their first real fight, and she wasn't sure what to do. She couldn't go to him and apologize; it would only raise his hopes of being allowed to continue his experiment with the rift node. She decided to wait until he had returned from the warehouse job. He would be less upset then and they could talk calmly and try to find a compromise that wouldn't endanger anyone. But her bed was cold and lonely without him.

Nikola raided her wine cellar and took the best bottles he could find back to his sitting room and downed them, glass after glass. It was petty revenge; petty enough he knew she would forgive him for it.

The problem was he knew he couldn't give up working on the rift technology. It occupied his mind the way electricity had so many years ago. He was obsessed with it; if he succeeded the Nobel Prize committee would beg him to accept the prize in physics. They already owed him at least one, even if they didn't know it. He loved Helen and wanted so much to be with her he was even willing to live at the Sanctuary and do nearly anything to please her. But if he couldn't continue the experiment here, if she refused to agree to him continuing it anywhere, what was he going to do?

He didn't have the funding personally to start over and set up his own lab with the materials he would need; and no way was he doing that song and dance with rich people again, giving away all his rights just for a few dollars to continue his experiments. He'd learned that lesson. Of course he had been incredibly naïve back then, thinking men who were making fortunes selling electricity and who had large investments in the copper for the wire would support someone trying to create free wireless electricity. He had been too focused on his work and too little aware of the rest of the world.

If he stayed he would have Helen, but he had no desire to work on anything but the Praxian rift technology, and now he couldn't do that here. His work was his life and he couldn't just twiddle away his time, even if he did have a lot of it. But if he left he wouldn't have Helen, and he was so happy with her. He didn't have enough funds to continue without her support anyway. Unless he went back to SCIU? No, bad idea.

He could leave and take the components for the node with him and set up somewhere else. But he would have to abandon Helen; if she knew where he was, she would descend on him again like she had back at SCIU. And it would be stealing- sort of. What he had done with her raw materials was worth more than the materials themselves, but Helen would probably see it as theft. But since he worked for her and she stocked everything for him and Heinrich to use, he had a right to use the materials, didn't he? Didn't he own what he had created more than she did?

And if he wanted to risk himself, what right did she have to deny him? It wasn't easy getting Helen to change her mind; he couldn't recall ever succeeding before, once she had decided something. So he would never be able to convince her to let him set up his node somewhere else, she was adamantly opposed to anyone using the rift technology.

He just couldn't find a way to have the two things he wanted most, Helen and his work. The whole question just kept spinning around in his mind. Nikola went to bed with the issue unresolved; it was making him miserable to keep thinking about it, maybe his subconscious could figure out something. Tomorrow he would go chase smelly little creatures into cages to please her. After that, he didn't know what he was going to do.


	2. Chapter 2 An Opening Seized

Nikola woke about 3:00 am. Whatever else happened, he had decided he couldn't give up his experiments. Helen would forgive him eventually, she always did. He made phone calls while he dressed and went down to the subbasement. He quickly crated the remaining node components, tore the shielding off the walls and ceiling and boxed that too.

Nikola loaded as much as he could into one of the transport spheres and rode with it to a surface access point where he used his own personal codes to override the Sanctuary security system. By the time he arrived there were four men waiting for him with a large truck. They began loading boxes and crates while he took the sphere back for another load.

After the sixth and final load, Nikola gave the men instructions, reset the security system after they left, and took the sphere back to the Sanctuary. It was almost 8:00 am. He brushed off the front of his jacket and ran his hands through his hair. Arriving at the Sanctuary platform, he trotted down the steps, checked to make sure his tie was straight and settled his jacket.

He was standing with his hands on his hips, staring at the waterfall and looking bored when Will and Jenna arrived about 30 seconds later. Jenna was an Abnormal who looked like a slightly plump college student in her early twenties, dressed in jeans, trainers and a hoodie. Henry came behind toting three cages with netting, tape, and masks stuffed inside, while Will and Jenna carried rolls of a clear, thick, plastic-like material.

"There you are, finally. Do you know how long I've been waiting here?" Nikola asked grouchily. "If I have to get up early to go do this, the least you could do is be on time."

"Sorry" said Will, "We had to get the equipment. Do you know Jenna?"

"No, I haven't had that pleasure" Nikola said smoothly, walking over and giving her a smile, his eyes assessing her figure. To Will he said "Why is she here?"

"She's coming with. Her sense of smell is rather unusual. She enjoys eau de skunk and rotting fish, don't you Jenna?"

She giggled a little and said "Like, that's one of my favorites. Willy said he needed somebody to help with smelly kodors, so I volunteered. I've never smelled a kodor, but they sound fabulous."

"Oh _Willy _said that, did he? Willy, has she had any mission experience at all?"

Will kept a strained smile on his face. "This is her first collection mission. It should be good training for her, kodors aren't dangerous and if the smell becomes overpowering she'll still be able to function if your super vampire senses get too grossed out and you end up puking in a corner."

"Vampires only regurgitate when they choose to, Willy, unlike humans who . . ."

Henry had been piling the gear into the sphere and broke in. "Everything's loaded. I included gloves and three masks just in case even though Jenna probably won't need one. This plastic stuff is to wrap around the cages; it will let air in but keep most of the odor under control once you catch the kodors. You guys better get going, huh?"

Will said "Yeah, we don't want to keep the plane waiting." He escorted Jenna into the sphere and Nikola followed, surreptitiously checking the sphere for traces of his earlier trips. He couldn't spot anything so he relaxed and ignored Jenna chattering on in her excitement at her first mission.

Word of the mission flashed across the continent to Doctor Petrocelli. She could only smile; at last, things seemed to be going right. Tesla was coming with only two other people, and the kodors she had planted would be a good distraction. Still, there would be a great deal left to chance and it might end up in failure as other attempts had. But they just needed Tesla outside after dark; then the timing of the train was everything. It would be preferable if the others weren't around, but even if they were it would still be possible if everything went just right. If it didn't, then she would wait and try again.

The plane trip was uneventful. Jenna spent a lot of time looking out the window, Will played video games, and Nikola brooded. A van was waiting when the plane landed and once the gear was transferred Will drove them to a fast food place for lunch. He got a burger and fries, and Jenna got a burger that she doctored with some gray powder she carried in her purse, explaining that her sense of taste was like her sense of smell, and she just couldn't possibly eat regular food the way it was. Fortunately the powder had very little odor.

Nikola just rolled his eyes at the delay and waited impatiently, drumming his fingers. He doubted Helen would notice the missing crates from the subbasement before he got back, but he knew he'd be far better off if he explained before she discovered it; she would assume the worst of him, she always did. Although he wasn't all that sure what the explanation was going to be other than he just couldn't stand to see his rift node work destroyed, again.

Afterwards they drove to the warehouse. They could smell a peculiar odor a block away that grew more powerful as they approached. Nikola and Will both donned masks before they got out of the van.

Jenna took deep breaths and smiled. "Like wow. Sort of like fresh horse urine, rotting licorice, and something else, I'm not quite sure what, but don't worry, it'll come to me." Will and Nikola were united in hoping it didn't, the smell was bad enough in itself without an accompanying description.

The warehouse was large, but narrow and long. Will and Jenna unloaded the cages and netting while Nikola did a circuit to make sure all the doors and windows were securely closed. He returned looking paler than usual, and glad he hadn't had time for breakfast that morning. He was doing his best to focus on the work instead of the reek, but wasn't quite managing to block it out.

Will was looking slightly green and periodically had to step outside for a breath of less potent air in spite of the heavy duty masks they were wearing. It turned out they didn't have quite enough netting to channel the kodors into the cages without leaving any escape routes, so they had to move some boxes and sheets of plywood to cover the ends near the walls. Jenna fetched and carried and helped set up while poking fun at both of the men.

"Look at you guys, you both look like you're going to hurl at any second. It's just a little odor, and it's not even all that strong."

Will replied from inside his mask "That's easy for you to say, let me wave some perfume under your nose and see how you react. Anyway, if either of us is going to throw up it'll be him, not me."

Nikola wisely kept his mouth shut. Enough of the odor was making it through his mask without opening his mouth to taste it as well as smell it. He could slow, even stop his breathing for a while, but this was taking hours and he had to give his cells oxygen while he was doing physical work. He refused to give Will the satisfaction of seeing him retch, even if he had nothing in his stomach to disgorge.

It was late afternoon by the time they were ready. Nikola walked briskly to the far end of the warehouse and vamped. The mask wasn't designed to fit over fangs, but he was able to keep it in place and started growling and making a lot of noise. He moved back and forth in augmented rushes across the warehouse, banging boxes and crates as he passed and worked his way forward. The air in the back was far worse than the front, truly fetid with the creatures' trapped odor.

It didn't take too long before he started hearing skittering and scraping, and caught a glimpse of something dark brown and furry running between hiding places. He tried to keep all the sounds between himself and the cages, but he heard one or two go off to the side and back the way he had come. He kept driving the others.

Eventually five kodors broke from the last of the shelves and crates and ran across empty space to the barriers. They looked something like small beavers with short stubby tails and longer legs, and moved very fast. At the barriers they turned to run down along them and kept moving away from Nikola as much as possible right toward the cages. Four ran smoothly into the cages, one ran past, up the far barrier to the wall and back into the main part of the warehouse.

Nikola trotted up and gave Will the bad news. "There are two more, plus the one that got away. You'll need to move those four into one of the cages so we can do it again."

Will and Jenna put on heavy gloves, turned the cages with the doors facing up, and transferred two of the 25 to 30 pound kodors into a large cage with the two others. The kodors squealed and struggled a little, but didn't try to bite, and the cage was quite full when they were done. They moved it back out of the line up to the outer door to help dispel the odor a little.

They reset the remaining two empty cages and adjusted the netting and Nikola moved off to start at the rear again. The second drive successfully netted the remaining three; Nikola hadn't heard any slip past him this time. He went outside to get some less smelly air while Will and Jenna started wrapping the cages and taking down the netting. He'd had the worst of the smell and he'd been doing most of the exercising in it and needed a break; he was nauseated and close to embarrassing himself. He would never admit it of course, so he just said his job was done and let them think he was being arrogant or lazy.

Outside, the sun had gone down and it was very dark. There was one arc light by another distant warehouse, and lights off in the city, but only one bare bulb shone weakly outside where they had parked the van. Nikola walked a little way from the warehouse and took off his mask. The air was better outside; the odor was less concentrated but still present, and his stomach calmed.

Suddenly he heard a woman cry out "Help me! My foot is stuck, somebody help me!"

Still vamped, he could see a figure a short block away struggling on some railroad tracks. He began to trot in that direction. Then the red warning lights started flashing and the gates came down. He ran full out, augmenting his speed as much as he could.

When he reached her, he could see the bright light of the train coming, moving fast. The woman wasn't even at the crossing, but just off of it, and how on earth did she get her foot under the rail? He wondered if she was drunk as he worked to free her.

The vibration in the rail was very strong and he could hear the loud noise of the engine approaching. The engineer saw them and blew the whistle and Nikola heard the scream of the brakes, but he knew that much mass could never stop in time.

And then the struggling woman melted through his hands, and flowed down between the rails.

Nikola didn't understand what had happened, but now no one was in danger except him. He leapt in a desperate attempt to clear the engine. The whistle was screaming, the breaks were screaming, a brilliant white light surrounded him, and then there was only the terrible impact and blackness.

The train finally screeched to a stop and railroad personnel with flashlights climbed off and ran back down the track, but they found no trace of anyone under the wheels or nearby. They went out ahead of the engine and walked the tracks for hundreds of feet, but nothing; they could only conclude the people had dodged the train at the last second. Finally they re-boarded, called in the incident, and the train rumbled off.

Unseen, two black vans had waited, one on either side of the tracks. As soon as Nikola's body landed, the nearest had disgorged three people and a stretcher. He was loaded on and shoved into the van in seconds. Inside the van, his apparently lifeless body was securely strapped down with titanium webbing and he was given two injections. Everything was removed from his pockets and placed in a heavy leaded box.

Under the train something flowed over the rail between the train's wheels as soon as they halted and a woman rose up out of seemingly nothing alongside the train. She walked away and got into the other van long before the railroad personnel reached the area. Both vans drove sedately away, carefully obeying all the traffic laws. Doctor Petrocelli would be pleased, the mission had been a complete success.

Will and Jenna redistributed the kodors among the three cages to give them all as much space as possible. The soft thick plastic had to be positioned so one layer covered every outer cage surface including the floor, and tape it in place. It was a struggle, and they soon realized they should have wrapped the cages before they were full of kodors. By the time they had it done Will was swearing under his breath and swearing he was going to repay Nikola somehow for walking out and leaving the most difficult part of the job to them.

They finally got all three cages wrapped and together carried each one out to the van, and went back and got the netting. Will assumed that when the work was done and they were ready to leave Nikola would reappear, but he didn't. Where had he wandered off to?

He and Jenna got flashlights from the van and walked around the area calling for him. Will tried calling his cell phone, but got no connection. The only thing they found was Nikola's mask, lying near the road some twenty feet from the warehouse. Eventually they got in their van and drove down the road slowly, over the tracks and beyond, but saw no sign of him nor anywhere he might have been likely to go.

"This is nuts" said Will. "Why would he just leave?"

Jenna said impatiently "I don't know. How long are we going to drive around looking for him? I mean, we've been out here a half an hour, if he wanted to be found we would have found him, right?"

"Maybe, but Magnus is not going to like it if we come home without him."

"Well, like, he's a big boy; he can come back on his own if he wants to, can't he?"

"I guess. Being a vampire nothing much could have happened to him. Maybe he's already at the plane waiting for us."

But Nikola wasn't at the plane, so Will and Jenna loaded the kodors with the help of the crew. Will poked around and delayed another half hour, but still no Nikola. He tried Nikola's cell again with no success, gave up, boarded, and ordered the plane to take off.

It was early morning by the time they got back to the Sanctuary. Will went to Helen's office, but she wasn't there yet. He went to her suite and stood outside the door. He hated to wake her up if she was still sleeping, but she wouldn't thank him for delaying. He knocked loudly.

He heard her call "coming", and in a few seconds she appeared at the door. She was in a dressing gown and her hair was mussed and she did not look happy.

"Will, what is it? This had better be important, I was having a lovely dream."

"We have the kodors, but we lost Nikola."

Helen paled. "You lost him? You mean he's . . . "

"No, no, he's not dead, he's just missing."

"How does one lose a vampire?" she asked caustically.

"We had the kodors in cages and he went outside to get some air while Jenna and I packed up. When we went out to load the van, he was gone."

"So you just left without him."

"No, we looked for him. We walked around and called, but he didn't answer. I tried his cell phone but it wasn't working or something. We found his mask by the road, so we drove around looking for him too, but no Nikola."

"That's most peculiar. I'm going to want to go over this with both of you in detail. I'll meet you in my office, twenty minutes."

Will went to get coffee and tell Jenna. They were waiting when Helen arrived, dressed with her hair neatly arranged. Henry arrived with her.

Helen sat down at her desk and said "Now, tell me everything from the beginning. I want every detail, even as much as you can remember of what was said."

Will and Jenna told her everything they could over and over for an hour and a half. Finally Helen said "Enough. There's nothing, no reason." She sat staring down at her desk for a little while, then her head snapped up.

"Henry, the crates with the rift node modules, are they still downstairs?"

"I don't know. I was detaching all the shielding connectors yesterday. Nikola must have been really mad to just rip the shielding off the walls like that. I didn't go look for the rest of the stuff."

"You mean none of the components were still in the room?"

"No, but I figured Nikola just worked late through the night and stowed everything himself. He does that sort of thing a lot."

"Go look, right now. Jenna, thank you for your help, we won't keep you."

Jenna got up and said "Okay, I'm glad to help, you know? Hey, is there any chance I could get one of those kodors for a pet? I'd, like, take real good care of it."

"No, they are wild animals. But if you would like, Will could assign you to be their caretaker until we have had a chance to examine them. If they are healthy they will be returned to their natural habitat. If not, you could work with them until they are or take permanent charge of any of them that we need to keep."

"Cool. I hope they're all okay, but if any of them aren't, well, you know, that would be all right, I'd nurse them back to health or whatever." Jenna bounced happily out the door. A moment later Henry charged back in.

"It's gone; every scrap, even the shielding. I looked all over."

Helen looked angry. "Check the security logs" she said tersely.

Henry tapped quickly on his laptop and said "Between three and eight yesterday morning security at one entrance was completely disabled, and it was done with Tesla's security code."

Will put his head in his hands and said "Oh god, here we go again."

Helen sat slumped. "Well, that explains where Nikola went, doesn't it?"

Henry was still working at his laptop. "Yep, I've got images of him taking the crates via the spheres, but he blacked out the camera at the entrance so I've got zip as far as what he did with them."

Will said thoughtfully. "Where would he go? Of course: the one place we can't reach him, the underground vampire colony. He'd feel safe there, and you said they have science labs so he'd have equipment to work with."

Helen didn't look so sure. "I don't know, it seems too obvious. But send out an immediate alert to all Sanctuary personnel in Hungary and Romania to be on the watch for him. He should be easy to spot with a truckload of crates and boxes. Tell them not to try to stop him though, I don't want anyone hurt. Just alert us and follow him as far as they safely can."

She continued "Henry, check for local truck rentals. He would have had accomplices since he didn't drive the truck himself, but we can track who ever rented a large enough truck to carry the node. Also check Nikola's favorite hotels. I doubt he has registered at any of them, but his long term residences would likely store some boxes for him if he asked."

Will got on a laptop too. "His Sanctuary accounts have less than a thousand dollars in them. He's been moving funds out regularly; I'll try to track his accounts and freeze them."

Helen shook her head. "No, track but don't freeze his money; if we watch for withdrawals, we may be able to get an idea of his location. Henry, can you track his cell phone?"

"Nope, already tried that, I'm getting nada. He hasn't used his credit cards since he disappeared either."

"Keep looking. I'll check his suite. It wouldn't be like him to leave clues around, but if he was in a hurry he might have overlooked something." Helen left Will and Henry to their computer searches.

The connecting door between her suite and Nikola's stood open as it usually did. Helen went to his bedroom and looked through the closets, drawers, and bathroom. There was nothing missing, not even his toothbrush or medication. He hadn't packed any clothes, either, which made her lean more toward the idea he had fled to the vampires. He had clothes there and didn't need his medication; among vampires he could be as vampire as he liked with no danger.

What bothered her about the idea was that he knew there were Sanctuary personnel in the area, and he couldn't very well sneak past them with a truck load of crates. He himself had given her a vampire society "free human" symbol and a handful more for any humans who needed to go underground and visit there. So he could be pursued there, and the Sanctuary had far better weapons than the vampires did. Would he really go there knowing it could cause an all-out war? Helen didn't think he would; at least she hoped he had thought that far ahead.

He hadn't left her a note either. That truly bothered her. It was their first fight since they had become a couple, but for him to run away without a word . . . that just wasn't like Nikola at all. Sneaking out the node, that she understood, he had done that so she couldn't stop him. But she would have expected him to make a loud announcement about his reasons for leaving and march out in a huff, not just disappear and leave her to worry about him. Although there was nothing unusual about him being utterly thoughtless sometimes, that was usually just when he was wound up in a project. Still, they had been so close these last months she just couldn't accept that he would be so unkind as to disappear without a word, without a trace.

When she went back to her office Will just said "Switzerland and the Cayman Islands." So the money trail ended. Henry hadn't found any big truck rentals in the area in a week, or even two smaller truck rentals together. He was still working on hotels, but Helen didn't hold out any real hope for that avenue. If Nikola had money they couldn't trace he would more likely just rent a storage facility somewhere.

So unless he turned up at the vampire colony they weren't going to find him any time soon. Helen had Will put out a general alert to all Sanctuary operatives; there was nothing else she could do, until and unless he chose to contact them.

/

The man had been well paid to drive his semi for eight hours until he reached the designated airport. Someone was waiting for him there, and he and his brothers unloaded the crates on to large rolling platforms. The crates were marked and wheeled out to the aircraft that would transport them across the Atlantic.

At Heathrow the crates were transferred to another plane that took them east, out of Europe and into Asia where they were loaded on to two old trucks and driven far into the countryside. The crates were unloaded into a barn of sorts, and left there.

/

The black vans didn't have that far to go, only just under a three hour drive. They drove directly into the facility garage and the outer door was closed before Nikola was unloaded. He was trundled to the laboratory where Doctor Petrocelli waited.

She took off his coat and vest and examined him. His heart was still not beating so the injections he had been given would be ineffective. There was obviously a lot of damage not yet healed so she had time. She took all the fluid samples she could get from him for analysis and set up an IV to start automatically as soon as his blood began to flow. Then she strapped him to a metal table with titanium webbing. Straps went around his wrists and ankles, above his knees and elbows, across his hips and chest, and around his neck. She left off the head band for now.

Unfortunately, she anticipated the initial sessions would be unpleasant. The IV held her own concoction designed to block Nikola's electromagnetic abilities. That was important, she certainly didn't want her metal instruments turned against her, so she would ensure a more than sufficient dosage, along with a mild sedative. The webbing would hold against vampire strength, but it would be easier if he was calm.

Once he was awake, she would start the psychedelics. While she had no need to change his DNA at all, achieving mental control was going to be a challenge. Ashley had been strong-willed, but young. Nikola- Nick she would call him- was older than any subject she had ever worked on. Her advantage was that he had been famous and she had read books about him so she knew a great deal about his early history. Along with the drugs, she would use that knowledge to turn him into her willing instrument.

This time she would be fully successful, there was no need to rush; she could take all the time in the world. No one knew where he was or even that he had been kidnapped, and her spies at the Sanctuary reported that everyone there thought he had taken some experiment and run off on his own, so they wouldn't be looking for her at all. And of course they would never find him here in her facility when they had no clue it even existed. This operation was going even better than she had hoped.

The plan was delicious. Nick didn't need to be able to teleport like her previous subjects; he would just walk into the Sanctuary under her instructions. He would make up his quarrel with Doctor Helen Magnus, and when they were alone he would kill her, slowly and painfully, and make her fully aware that it was the Cabal that was doing it. He would watch himself kill her from inside his own head and be totally unable to stop himself. Afterward, Nick would kill as many other Sanctuary personnel as possible before he was killed or took his own life. The Cabal would be avenged.

A/N: Nubbin 7 and Lorienleaf, thank you so much for your reviews. It really encourages me when folks let me know they are enjoying my work.


	3. Chapter 3 Doorstep of the Void

Nikola awoke. He was pleased and a little surprised that he was alive. If he had been pulled under the locomotive he could easily have been dismembered. Apparently he'd been thrown clear, but where was he now?

Not the Sanctuary and not a hospital; not even a morgue. Not a bed, either, a flat, hard metal table and he was strapped down. He could turn his head and that was all.

A woman in a lab coat was watching him, and when he noticed her he watched her back. She would know by now that he was an Abnormal, but he wasn't going to give her any more clues until he knew more about where he was and why he was restrained.

"Your name is Nikola Tesla. Do you remember that?"

She would have looked in his wallet. "Yes. I'm perfectly fine, you can release me now."

"You can call me Doctor Susan. Your skull was damaged, and nearly every bone on the left side of your body was broken. How do you feel?"

Nikola assessed his body. Some of the broken bones were still knitting, and he had a pounding headache, but he was capable of walking out of wherever he was if she would unstrap him. "I have a little headache, but I'm sure it will pass. What are you giving me?" he asked, noticing the IV in his left arm. Both of his shirt sleeves had been rolled up past his elbows and both hands were fastened palm up. Only the left arm had a needle in it at the moment, but the fact the right arm was available for the same treatment made him uneasy.

"It's just a little something to suppress your electromagnetic abilities, Nick. And the straps are titanium; you won't be able to break them, even as strong as you are. We might as well get it out of the way, why don't you try?"

"It's Nikola, not 'Nick'. And I'd rather not at the moment." Nikola could see a small steel wheeled table with metal tools or instruments on it. He tried to pull it with magnetism, but couldn't even feel the table much less move it. He could faintly sense the power running to the bright overhead lights, but he couldn't affect it, make it flicker or brighten. This was bad. Could he signal the autotype? No, his whole body was too relaxed and he couldn't seem to focus very well; although that might not be significant since he wasn't sure the autotype still existed.

"Doctor Susan, who are you and what do you want?"

"We're going to be friends, Nick; very good friends. Are you cold at all?"

"Nikola. A little. If we're friends, why am I strapped down?" He wasn't really cold, but if he did manage to get a hand free it would be better to do it under a cover to give him more time to get the rest of him free before anyone noticed.

She covered him gently with a very light blanket, hardly more than a sheet. "I said we will be friends, but we're not yet, are we? I'll leave you to think for a little while now."

She passed out of the circle of light and Nikola realized he couldn't see most of the room. The lights were spotted directly on him and beyond that were only dim shapes. He heard her footsteps fade and then a door close. It was silent.

_I'm in the hands of Creepy Susan. I wonder if there are cameras? Well, she already knows what I am._ Nikola vamped and looked around with his superior vampire vision. He had to keep his eyes away from the very bright lights above him, and he could only see to either side of him and a little to the foot of his table if he choked himself on the neck strap by lifting his head a bit.

The room wasn't large. He could see only the one door and no windows. It looked institutional with cracked tile flooring and what appeared to be beige walls; it was hard to determine color with so little light. But there were tables, cabinets, and refrigeration units and he spotted a microscope and a centrifuge along with other covered lumps that were probably instruments or machines of some kind. There was at least one camera near the ceiling in the corner past his left foot; if there were more he couldn't see them.

He disliked doing what she had told him to do, but he had to test the straps. He strained against them and tried wiggling and twisting as much as he could but nothing broke, nothing loosened. His claws were ineffective, so the straps likely were titanium, just as she had said. He devamped; the light was less painful to his eyes that way.

The main thing at this point was not to let his imagination run away with him. He could easily invent a dozen fairly horrible scenarios of what the crazy lady was going to do to him, but that would be counterproductive. He might as well take advantage of the fact he was being left alone.

He thought about Helen. She probably had discovered the missing crates by now. She would be angry at him taking them, and hurt if she thought he had run off on his own without even saying goodbye. Could Will or Jenna have seen what happened? The train had made a lot of noise, but they were working in the warehouse and might not have heard it or paid any attention to it. If they had seen what happened, Helen would have all the Sanctuary resources looking for him. If they hadn't, he was completely on his own.

There was nothing he could do, strapped down as he was and unable to apply his electromagnetic abilities. He would have to wait for an opportunity, assuming that woman gave him one. She seemed oddly experienced in managing a vampire, though. He needed to finish healing and might as well take the opportunity he had been given. In spite of the lights, he went to sleep.

Doctor Petrocelli went down the hall to the computer room. Her right hand man, Scott Eberhardt, was there scrolling through the holograph simulation files, bringing up the ones he thought she might want first. Over the years they had received many snippets of film of Helen Magnus from her public appearances and more recently from their spies, and he had used those to create 3D simulations of various scenes that could be fed into a sensory helmet.

He asked "How's the subject? Are you ready for the helmet yet?"

"No, it will be a while. I'll want the more current timeline Helen Magnus files first. We'll work backwards to the more visceral episodes. Depending on his reactions we may need to make some adjustments as we go."

"I know, you told me before. I've got a number of CG artists standing by; we've got good CG representations of all the major figures and locations in his life, we can manipulate them any way you want, but he's still going to be able to tell they're not real, isn't he?"

"At first, perhaps. But by the time I get through pumping chemicals into him he won't know me from his mother. Don't worry, I've done this before, remember?"

Scott nodded. He was only in his early twenties; actually working on a project was new to him so she wasn't surprised at a few jitters. A little reminder of his commitment might be in order.

"I remember your father used to get a little nervous, have some doubts before an operation too, but as soon as the action started he was always cool and professional."

"Until those Sanctuary monsters murdered him" Scott added angrily.

"They killed so many good people. Your father was one of the best. I'm sure his last thought was of you, safe at college when they attacked. Don't worry Scott they're going to be punished for what they did."

The young man nodded quickly. It was satisfying to see the firm resolve in his eyes. "We're going to get them, aren't we."

"We most certainly are."

Doctor Susan checked the monitors periodically to see how Nick was doing. She had hoped a few hours alone would cause him anxiety, instead he was sleeping peacefully. Ashley would have been wasting her strength fighting. As she had expected, his greater age was going to require quite a different approach than she had used before. After three hours she decided waiting was accomplishing nothing and returned to Nick's room.

"Good morning Nick" she said as she went in. It was late afternoon, but disassociating him from the outside world was one of the first steps.

"Nikola. It's not morning."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

She neither confirmed nor denied he was right. She changed the EM suppressant IV bag and injected something additional into the line.

"What's that for?"

"There's no point in asking, is there, when you're going to find out in a moment anyway."

Whatever it was hit his system. His body flushed hot, then cold, and he was suddenly nauseated. "It's just making me sick. You need to release me so I can turn over unless you want me to choke on my own vomit."

She didn't reply, but injected a second substance into the IV line. The nausea abated, but he felt a little dizzy, and green and gold stripes appeared before his eyes. Nikola waited calmly. He'd had visions like this before he had become a vampire. He didn't know how she was inducing it, or even if she knew what he was experiencing. If she didn't he wasn't about to tell her.

"How do you feel now, Nick?" she asked with what he thought might be genuine concern; curiosity certainly.

"Nikola" was all he said, staring at the image she couldn't see.

He heard her walk away; round one to him. Unfortunately, unless someone came and rescued him there were going to be a lot of rounds, and eventually she would start winning and that would be very unpleasant. At least she would have to wait until this cleared his system before she injected something else into him. Meanwhile he just enjoyed the pretty colors.

The vision faded after about fifteen minutes, and he was feeling reasonably normal by the time she came back a couple of hours later with another woman. Nikola wasn't sure, looking at the second woman, but was she someone he should know?

"Nick, this is Molly. She has something she wants to say to you."

"It's Nikola. Hello Molly."

"Um, hello. I just wanted to say thank you for trying to rescue me from the train. I wasn't really in any danger of course, but it was very gallant of you."

"You're the one who lured me to the tracks and because of you I got hit by a train. You're not welcome."

Molly shrugged. "I did my job. I just wanted to be polite and say 'thank you' while you could still understand what I meant." She turned and walked away, Nikola looking after her unhappily. Her implication that they were going to attack his mind was no surprise; those injections weren't exactly vitamins.

Meanwhile Doctor Susan had prepared another needle and injected him directly in his arm. "This needs to be injected into muscle, Nick, sorry about the sting."

"Nikola" he muttered, as a great lassitude overcame him. Then he passed out.

When he woke again, he was still strapped to the table but he was wearing short-sleeved pajamas, and both arms had IVs in them. _Great, she's dressing and undressing me like I'm some sort of doll._

"The right arm has plasma; I know injection isn't ideal for feeding you, but I'm not foolish enough to get anywhere near your fangs. You do need to eat, you're going to be here a long time" Susan commented in a pleasant voice.

"What is the point of all this? Do you have some sort of grudge against me?"

"I told you, we're going to be friends; very good friends. It's just going to take a while. Do you know what this is?" she asked, showing him the helmet trailing wires.

"I know what it is; I just don't know what you plan to do with it."

"I'm going to entertain you with it." She injected something into his left IV, and he began to feel as if he were floating. The world got fuzzy around the edges. He felt her putting the helmet on him, and clipping on a heart and blood pressure monitor, but he wasn't able to offer any resistance.

The helmet covered his head completely. He blinked in the dark, and then there were images of a room that he recognized. He turned his head and his field of vision turned too. Very clever.

_He heard the scrape of his feet, the opening of a door behind him. He turned visually. Helen walked into her office in the old Sanctuary and faced him, looking very sad. "You failed, Nikola. You were supposed to create a gun that would disable the vampires, not kill them. And now, because of your incompetence, Ashley is dead. My daughter is dead because you couldn't perform a simple technical feat."_

Nikola started to respond, but stopped himself. This wasn't real. Helen had never blamed him for Ashley's death, she had been grateful for his help in saving the Sanctuary. He had felt bad, even a little guilty that he hadn't been able to create what she desperately needed in the short time allowed, but he had done his best and she knew it. The scene faded out.

_They were in the catacombs. His new zombie vampire had risen from the floor and Helen faced Nikola. "You are a monster creating other monsters. I'm sorry I ever gave you the Source Blood serum, if I could destroy you I would." Then she shot him, but instead of center body hits she deliberately aimed at his head. That was serious and she knew it; it wouldn't kill him, but it would disable him far longer than any other injury. She emptied the gun into him and he fell; his creations didn't catch him, he hit the floor. Helen stood over him smiling; then John appeared and she said "Kill that thing; I never want to see it again." John loomed over him and reached toward him, plunging both hands into his body and tearing at him_.

The scene faded out, but left Nikola shaking. It wasn't true, it was all made up, he knew that. Helen had only shot him in the head once long ago, and it had taken him so long to recover she had apologized and sworn she would never do it again. John might have seriously tried to kill him, but not in front of her. And she had never said words like that to him, she . . .

_The new scene was from an older time, World War II. Helen had just come back from her mission with James and Nigel and they walked into his London laboratory. He was alone, his German spy assistant had been taken away, and he had been looking at the formulas on the chalk board. He couldn't make any sense out of them, and he was glad to be interrupted._

_ "There you are, hiding out in your lab" Helen accused. _

_ James chimed in "Bad show old boy, you were always the odd one but I never figured you for a coward."_

_ Nigel added "Bloody foreigner. I knew we shouldn't have trusted you."_

_Nikola responded "You know better than that, Ike wouldn't let me leave here. I wanted to . . ."_

_ Helen stalked up to him "Don't lie on top of your cowardice. You're practically invulnerable and we needed you, but you just stayed here safe in your lab." _

_ Nigel said in disgust "Pretending to contribute to the war effort with your doodles; you ought to be stood up against a wall and shot, only that wouldn't quite do it would it?"_

_ Helen spat on him. "I never want to see your face again, Mister Tesla." She strode out, followed by James and Nigel. _

The scene faded, leaving Nikola puzzled until he remembered. It's not real, someone is just inventing this stuff; none of them had felt like that, they had all understood why he had to stay behind, hadn't . . .

_He was on a street in New York. It was late autumn, a few brown leaves whirled past, tossed by a stiff breeze and passing traffic. From the style of the automobiles he deduced it was around 1937 or 1938, but he was alone. He looked around trying to spot anyone he knew. _

_Someone hailed him from across the street- Burton? Burton from the war department, that's right he had been in talks with several different nations' war departments. Traffic was clear, so he stepped out into the street and then saw the movement in his peripheral vision. He turned his head and saw the taxicab bearing down on him._

_It was Helen driving, her hands clutching the steering wheel white-knuckled and her face determined. He tried to dodge, but he was slow, human slow, and she veered after him. The impact knocked him down, pain in his leg, and then his ribs, his hands scraping on the pavement._

_He was stunned, confused. This really had happened, but he hadn't seen who had been driving the taxi the first time. It couldn't have been Helen, could it? _

"_Helen?" he said uncertainly, looking after the disappearing cab._

The image went dark. Someone removed the helmet and he blinked in the bright light.

"There now, you hardly even noticed the time passing, did you Nick?" Doctor Susan asked solicitously. She was very pleased he had responded directly to the images in the last two scenarios. That was definitely progress.

Nikola's leg and ribs still hurt. But it was just a simulation, it wasn't real, he couldn't have suffered a real injury. Was there any possible way the images they were feeding into his mind could affect the rest of his body? Before he had been hit by the cab he would have said "absolutely not", but now he was just confused.

She put something else into the IV. Whatever it was burned as it spread through his body, but aside from an initial grimace he didn't react. Let her guess what it did and how long it did it. The pain faded and he realized he hadn't corrected her calling him "Nick" as he passed out.

Scott walked down the hall whistling and swinging a baseball bat. Hitting that guy on the table a couple of times was just a tiny down payment of what they were going to do to the Sanctuary, but it had felt very, very good.

/

Jenna knocked tentatively at Will's office door.

"Come in" he called, and she came in slowly and stood in front of his desk.

"Willy, can I ask you something?"

Will was working on routing a small Abnormal colony out of a country in revolution to somewhere in the region that could support their biodiversity. They weren't in danger yet, so he could take a few minutes to help Jenna.

"Sure, but call me Will, okay? What can I do for you?"

Jenna sat down on the edge of a chair. "I went to see Doctor Magnus about the kodors. One of them has a bad cut on its leg. The vet and I bandaged it, but it can't be sent back to its natural habitat yet. Anyway, she just seemed so sad, and I wanted to know if you knew why."

Will sat back in his chair and laced his hands. "It's Tesla. He's still missing and nobody knows where he is or if he's okay."

"I didn't think anybody liked Mr. Tesla. I mean he wasn't very nice to anyone."

"No he wasn't, but that didn't stop Magnus from being in love with him."

"But she'll get over that, won't she? I mean, like, she's beautiful, she can get another boyfriend, easy."

Will leaned forward and shook his head. "It's not that simple. You know Magnus is far older than she looks?"

"Yeah, somebody said something like that."

"Tesla is the only person she knew when she was young who's still around. He's the only one who's likely going to be around for hundreds of years like she is. They share a lot of things, memories, plans, inside jokes that she can't share with anyone else. Do you understand?"

Jenna shrugged and said "I guess. I thought maybe it was because he could do all those science things, but Henry can do them too, can't he?"

"Henry is very capable, but Tesla has a hundred years head start on him. Having Tesla around to do 'science things' was actually a pretty good idea, no matter how annoying the guy could be."

"So you miss him too?"

"I wouldn't go that far. But I feel bad for Magnus, she's really hurting right now."

Jenna stood up. "Okay, thanks, I get it now. Willy . . . sorry, Will? Do you think Mr. Tesla will come back?"

"I don't know. If he doesn't, we'll just have to hope he's okay wherever he is, Jenna."

Jenna nodded somberly and left. Will sat back again and thought about their conversation. There was something out of character about it, but he couldn't put his finger on exactly what. Maybe he was just imagining things; he didn't know Jenna all that well. He went back to work.

Helen sat at her desk reading a report recommending activities for mental and physical stimulation for some of the Abnormals living at the Sanctuary. She had read the same paragraph three times, and still had no idea what it meant. She put it down.

Where could he be? No one had reported seeing Nikola anywhere in the world, he hadn't responded to messages left for him at any of his usual haunts, and Ana had promised to notify her if he showed up at her estate. Ana had at first been reluctant to make such a promise, but after a moment of silence had agreed, saying that even though Nikola was her king, he shouldn't hurt someone who loved him. Well, Ana had taken blood from both of them, so she should know.

Helen decided to take a walk. She wasn't getting any work done anyway; she might as well get some air and a change of scenery. But she found herself headed for the roof rather than outside.

At least some part of her distracted mind had remembered she needed to feed the pigeons again. Perhaps it was just her imagination, but they didn't seem to eat quite as eagerly when she fed them as they had for Nikola.

Did they miss him too? She wasn't sure how much emotion pigeons felt, or how aware they were. But they had fluttered up and perched on his hands to feed whereas they rarely came within three feet of her as they pecked away at the seed she scattered for them, so at least they knew the difference.

She gave them fresh water and went back inside. She stopped at the kitchen to wash her hands and pick up a couple of apples and walked down to the lab to see if Henry wanted one.

He looked up when she entered and smiled and accepted one of the apples when she offered. They sat and crunched together for a little, then Henry asked "So how are you doing?"

"All right I suppose. It's odd, I didn't see Nikola for sixty-odd years and missed him very little most of that time, and now he's gone a couple of days I'm a hopeless mess; I'm forgetful, I can't concentrate, and I'm neglecting everyone."

"Well things are different now."

"Are they?"

"Maybe we're different now."

"We? Don't tell me you miss him too."

"I've been stuck on this stupid compressor all day, it doesn't work and I cannot see any reason why. If he was here, I'd just ask him, he'd belittle me, and then tell me what was wrong with it and I'd have it fixed by now. So yeah; but don't tell anybody, okay?"

"It'll be our secret" Helen said with a small smile that Henry returned.

"You know he'll be back. It's the bad penny thing, they always come back."

Helen's smile faded. "I hope so. Is there anything you need, other than help with the compressor?"

"Nope, and I'll figure it out eventually."

"Of course."

They tossed their apple cores in the trash and Helen went to talk to Will. He was in his office typing madly on his computer. She sat down and waited until he finished and turned to her.

She gestured at his computer. "Anything I should know about?"

"Not really. I figured out where our soon-to-be refugees can go and how to get there and just E-mailed it to them and copied you. What's up?"

"I was just wondering if you have thought of any other way to find Nikola."

Will grimaced a little. "We've done everything we can. As much as I hate to admit it, the guy outsmarted us and successfully dropped off of the face of the earth. I take it you haven't thought of anything either."

"There must be something; some little thing that just hasn't occurred to us."

Will looked thoughtful and didn't respond for a moment.

"What is it? Have you thought of something?"

"Not really, it's just . . . Jenna was in here a little while ago and she seemed really worried about you and Tesla both. It just seemed a little odd to me since she barely knows you and her only contact with him was while we were catching the kodors."

"Do you think she knows something? Should we question her again?"

"I can't imagine what she could know, we were together the whole time; I should know everything she knows. Questioning her again is probably not a good idea. If she's hiding something, and I'm not saying she is, she's not going to tell us if we try to force it out of her. Maybe she knows something and isn't really even aware she knows it. In any case, there's no reason to believe that if there is something she's not telling us that it has anything at all to do with Tesla."

"So we do nothing? That's not acceptable."

Will shook his head. "Look, it's just a hunch; she may be a really nice girl who cares about people and I'm reading way too much into it. It's a long shot; don't get your hopes up. I'll stop by and visit our smelly little friends a few times during the next couple of days, I'm sure I'll run into her, and we'll have a little talk."

"You'll let me know as soon as you do."

"Sure, but like I said, it may be nothing, or it may not be about Tesla at all."

"I trust your instincts Will. Find out what she knows. It's the only possible lead we have."

Will nodded as she left; he was worried about her. After Ashley had teleported into the EM shield, Magnus had been frantic, desperate to find her alive against all odds. He sensed the same desperation now, but in the absence of any outlet for her energy, she had suppressed her urge to act into a semblance of business as usual. He was afraid she would go on, day after day seeming fine, and then suddenly break under the pressure. He resolved to keep an eye on her, but he couldn't watch her all the time, he had his job to do.

Helen strode down the hallway back to her office, determined to get some work done. That bloody Nikola; when she found him she was going to shoot him, and then kiss him. Or maybe she would kiss him first, and then shoot him, she couldn't decide which. And it didn't matter, as long as she found him.

A/N: Saphyr88, Chartreuseian, and Watch Stander: thank you for your comments/reviews.

Chartreuseian- no promises on going to "M"; I'm trying to stay at "T" since I wrote Camping Trip and Society of Vampires at that level and this is a continuation. I have some "M-rated" thoughts though; I may just have to write a separate story when this one is over.


	4. Chapter 4 One Step In

Nikola had a blinding headache. His body was doing its best to clear the drugs being injected into him, but it wasn't quite keeping up and he was getting unintended drug interactions. And while he could eliminate anything resembling bedsores, he was starting to feel very stiff and achy from lying in the same position for hours, or was it days at a time. His time sense was completely compromised, which annoyed him a great deal.

Doctor Susan always acted very nice toward him while continuing to shove needles into him. He was really getting tired of her and her "friends" routine, but all he could do to resist what she was doing to him was to mute or hide as much of his reactions to the drugs as he could.

Aside from the headache, this latest injection hadn't done much of anything. When they put the helmet back on him he just closed his eyes and listened to the scenarios run. The voices weren't bad; they had Helen's down pat. But the timber of James' voice was off a bit and Nigel's was half a tone high. He hadn't noticed before. They didn't replay the taxi scene, instead the show was cut off at the end of the WWII scene and the helmet removed.

Doctor Susan smiled down at him, but Nikola was pleased to see she really wasn't very happy. "Now that wasn't very interesting, was it Nick?" she asked. When Nikola didn't respond she added "The previous prescription worked much better. I'll think I'll just tweak it a bit, and we can try again. How are you feeling now?"

"I'm getting stiff from being in the same position for so long. What do you recommend for that Suzy, how about letting me up for some exercise?"

Her face stiffened a bit at "Suzy", but then she regained control. "It won't be much longer, just a few days and we'll be able to let you get up. As soon as these neural pathways are established in your brain, I'll be able to use them to override the emotional content of your previous memories. Knowing about it won't allow you to stop me, I assure you Nick. It worked with Ashley and it will work with you."

Nikola was shocked; he had thought everyone associated with the Cabal was either dead or in hiding. The Cabal had kidnapped and twisted Ashley's mind terribly. He hadn't really known her very well, but if she had been anything like her mother, then she had been extremely strong-willed. If Suzy could change Ashley, the chances were good she could do the same to him. "You're Cabal?"

"The Cabal is dead. Let's just call this a daughter organization. We don't have a fancy name, but we are a very dedicated group of people. Now let me give you something to help clear your system, and in a little while we can begin again."

She put another drug into the EM suppressant drip and left with a smile. Nikola was starting to hate that smile. But his headache cleared within minutes. Good, he felt better, but bad, she was getting the chemistry right. That was a downside to being a vampire; she could experiment on him with little or no danger of doing him any permanent injury.

There had to be some way for him to get himself off of the dratted table. If there had been only wrist and ankle straps, he could have broken one of his hands and yanked it out of confinement, healed it, and used it to undo the other straps. But he couldn't move his elbow enough to move his hand that far, and even if he could, he would only be able to reach the strap across his hips and perhaps the one above his knee; not enough to get him loose.

The table was only steel. If he was at full strength and could get enough leverage he could bend it, but he was totally helpless strapped flat to it. All he could do was delay and hold out as long as he could and hope the Sanctuary team was searching for him and would find him.

Nikola took a nap while he had the chance. He was spending a lot of time unconscious and very little time sleeping, and as a consequence he never felt rested in spite of being mostly immobilized.

Doctor Susan's reentry into the room woke him. Other than the one visit from Molly, she was the only one he ever saw, except twice when someone else had come in and gotten something and left without even looking at him. He couldn't tell how big this facility was, or how many guards or other personnel he would have to go through if he managed to get himself off the table somehow.

She injected something into his IV and also put something directly into his upper arm. Nikola felt the familiar floating sensation, but the world didn't just get fuzzy, it blurred out completely. Then he was back in the helmet.

_He was in his apartment in the St. Regis Hotel. He looked around and saw his white pigeon with the touch of gray on its wings, and gladly scooped her into his arms. It had been so very long since he had seen her; or had it just been yesterday? This bird was special, he could tell she loved him, and he loved her. They were so connected it seemed as if he had only to think of her and she would come to him. He petted and cuddled her._

_ Then he felt a third presence in the room, and turned. He had expected it to be Helen for some reason, but it was Doctor Susan. She came over to him and held out her hand; there was bird seed in it, and the white pigeon began eating from her hand. Doctor Susan met his eyes and said "She is so beautiful and I love her so much, don't you?"_

_ Nikola nodded. Doctor Susan shouldn't be here should she? She went on "We share this wonderful love, and it makes me feel close to you. Don't you feel it too?"_

_ He did feel close to her. The white pigeon trusted her, so he should trust Doctor Susan as well, shouldn't he? He felt another presence in the room._

_ Helen stood a few feet away, scowling. "You're not allowed to have a pigeon in a hotel, Nikola, you know that. You'll have to get rid of it."_

_ "I can have a pigeon if I want one, you can't tell me what to do."_

_ "Don't kid yourself, you always do what I say, and now you work for me too. If you won't get rid of it, then I will."_

_ Helen glared at the pigeon. Doctor Susan tried to step between them, but she was too late. The pigeon shuddered and died. Nikola hugged her to him tightly; Helen had killed the creature he loved so much with that terrible glare of hers. He looked at Helen with hatred. "You bitch" he said, "Why did you do that? You didn't have to do that, you didn't have to kill her. We could have worked something out."_

_ Helen said "I do what I want; I always have, you know that. You love me, not a pigeon, and I don't share."_

_ "Love you? I couldn't love anyone that cruel" Nikola said, backing away from her._

The scene blacked out. Part of Nikola knew that he had been alone with the pigeon when it died, but part of him was still a little bit angry at Helen. All of him felt the pang of grief at losing his beloved bird for a second time. And Helen did usually do just what she wanted, although when he did what he wanted she called him "selfish" and . . .

_He was on Long Island, facing his 187 foot tall tower at Wardenclyffe. Next to it was the 100 foot by 100 foot single story brick building that held the power plant, machine shop, and all the equipment. But there was something wrong. The windows were broken out, it looked abandoned. He started to walk towards it._

_From behind him Helen called "Nikola? Come away, it's over now."_

_ He turned to her gladly. "Helen! You're just in time. I can save it, repair it and make it operational. I just need a few thousand dollars. You'll loan it to me won't you?"_

_ "Don't be ridiculous. My money is for my Sanctuary, I can't be throwing it into some useless project like this."_

_ "It's not useless; I'm going to communicate across the Atlantic with it. And you can afford it, you're rich. You've always been rich, living in mansions and having whatever you want. It's just a few thousand dollars. Please, Helen, it means a great deal to me."_

_ "You've always been poor and you'll always be poor. You've no head for money, Nikola, so there's no sense in giving you any." She turned and started to walk away._

_ "Helen! Wait, please. Please?" But she didn't turn back._

Nikola found himself breathing hard and more than a little angry when the scene ended. Whether or not Helen had been at Wardenclyffe was immaterial. She really had been rich, always, but she had never given him any money even when he desperately needed financial help.

_He was in his laboratory on Fifth Avenue. There were his notes and papers, current experiments, and souvenirs of his previous successes. He walked around letting the various objects stimulate pleasant memories of the work he had completed. Then he smelled smoke._

_ Nikola turned. Helen had lit a bucket of oily rags; she kicked it over and flames spread across the floor with him on one side and her and the only exit on the other._

_ "Helen, why? Why would you do this?"_

_ "Because you are a fool to waste your time like this Nikola. Thomas Edison was cleverer and more productive than you and became rich and famous. Marconi was far more important in the invention of wireless, he received a Nobel Prize and you never did. Give it up Nikola, go raise chickens or do something you are actually capable of."_

_ "That . . . that's not true. I was the discoverer of new principles; they just built on my work."_

_ "Stop fooling yourself. You are so incompetent I wouldn't hire you to clean cages at the Sanctuary." Helen turned and walked out the door._

_ Nikola just stood there, puzzled. For one thing, the fire didn't seem very hot considering how it was leaping and roaring. For another, he remembered a number of things that were in his lab when it burned that were missing in this scene, the color of the walls was wrong, the placement of the furniture was wrong, and Helen _had_ hired him and she had always respected his work. Besides, he hadn't even been there when his lab had burned, it had happened at night._

_Then suddenly the fire became hot. He looked down and saw it searing his feet. He tried to get out of it, slapping at it but it followed him, burning his hands has well. He could smell his skin burning, and he became aware of the straps holding him down as he struggled futilely to get away from the pain. Then Susan was helping him past the flames and the worst of the pain subsided. The scene showed them exiting the building together and ended._

He felt someone tugging the helmet off. He lay still with his eyes closed; Suzy didn't need to see that he had become aware of reality by the end of the last scene. Apparently the drug had worn off sooner than she expected. He could still smell charred flesh, and was aware of his body working to heal burns on his hands and feet.

So they were adding unpleasant real physical sensations to the sight and sound of the helmet scenes to increase his reactions and confuse him. They had likely hit him with something to simulate the taxicab striking him. He was less confused now, but becoming more afraid. They were willing to cause him physical pain, and Suzy could indulge in it as much as she pleased as long as she fed him and let him heal between injuries.

"Nick?" Doctor Susan said softly. "I know you're awake. I'm sorry that last vision was so difficult. Are you all right?"

Nikola opened one eye and looked at her, and closed it again. "Get lost Suzy. Unless you want to fetch me something to eat; I'm hungry, and a needle in my arm isn't very satisfying."

"All right, but I'll have to put the headband on you." Nikola still had his eyes closed, but felt the band go across his forehead and tighten. He heard her walk away, a refrigerator door open and close, and the microwave run for a few seconds. Her footsteps returned.

"I know you don't like cow blood, so this is pronghorn from the American Southwest."

Nikola opened his eyes. Antelope? Really? He liked antelope, and he was a little disturbed that she knew that.

She positioned the warm bag at his mouth and he vamped and extended his feeding fangs into it. It really was pronghorn, and he sucked it down greedily.

"Do you want another?"

"Yes, please."

She repeated the process; he fed more slowly on the second bag. Maybe Suzy wasn't such a horrible person after all. She tossed out the bag and came back over to him with another syringe. She injected it into his arm, and Nikola felt himself passing out again. His last thought was a confused mélange of the taste of yummy pronghorn blood, sharing his love for the white pigeon with Suzy, and resenting Helen's preference for Edison and Marconi.

/

The second time Will went to the holding area to visit the kodors, Jenna was there too. She was actually in with them, cleaning their temporary habitat. They stayed a few feet away from her, wary but not really frightened.

Will waved to her through the clear solid plexiluminum and she waved back, picked up her cleaning equipment and went out the door in the back. In a couple of minutes she came out into the hallway and joined Will. The arrangement kept the kodors' scent out of the hallway, although a little still clung to her.

"Hi Will. Aren't they beautiful?"

"They do look good. Their coats are shiny and they're starting to put some weight on. You're doing a good job, Jenna."

Jenna smiled wistfully. "The vet says they can be taken back to central Canada and released next week, you know? See the bandage on that ones' leg? It will probably come off like, tomorrow, the wound is nearly healed."

Will admired the kodors for a few more seconds and then looked at Jenna. "Those are pretty earrings, are they new?"

"Oh, these things? No, they're not new, I've had them, like forever, you know? Uh, but thanks." Jenna looked uncomfortable, and Will wondered why.

"I suppose you weren't able to bring very much with you when you escaped SCIU and came to the Sanctuary. Why don't we sit down in the lounge so we can talk?"

They walked over to a small furniture grouping. Jenna sat in a chair with one leg tucked up under her and Will sat across from her.

Will asked casually "So where did you get the earrings? I have a girlfriend and I might like to get her something like those."

"I . . . I don't know exactly, they were a present."

"A present? From who? Maybe I could ask them where they got them."

"Bobby; Bobby Mathis, he's kind of my boyfriend." At Will's puzzled look she added "You know, the guy who comes to visit me? He brings me presents from the surface. Sometimes he brings something for Reena- you know, Querina the Brieman? She's my BFF, we came here together."

"That's really nice of him. Do you give him presents too?" Will realized too late that might be an awkward question, depending on what Jenna might be giving him.

Jenna shrugged. "Not much. I mean, what is there down here anybody would want? And it's not like I can go shopping or anything living here, so how could I buy him anything? I mean, duh."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you. You know I'm the resident psychiatrist, so it's my job to get to know everyone."

Jenna just shrugged again and looked sulkily at the floor.

"Tell me about Reena. I haven't met her yet."

"Well, you know, she's a Brieman. She's about four feet tall and real delicate, so I sort of watch out for her."

"Oh yeah, I think I've seen her around. She seemed a little shy."

"Just, like, around big people she doesn't know. She's not shy with me or Bobby."

"I guess it must be boring for a young woman like you to live down here."

"Sometimes, but you know, the surface is worse, with all the bad smells, and I can't get my food powder there. I wish I could visit more though, it would be way cool to have some money and go shopping."

"Going on the collection mission and taking care of the kodors earned you some money. Maybe Bobby would take you shopping next time he comes."

Jenna's eyes lit up. "Really? I have money? I haven't even looked at my account in like, ages. That's so cool, wait until I tell Reena, she'll be so jealous. But I'll get her something too, you know?" She was nearly bouncing in her seat in anticipation.

Will nodded. This conversation wasn't accomplishing anything other than letting him get to know Jenna better; time to try a more direct approach.

"Jenna, the other day when you came and talked to me, it seemed like something was bothering you. Is there anything you want to talk about?"

Jenna's happiness evaporated. "Well . . . it's just . . . it's probably nothing, you know?"

"Why don't you let me be the judge of that."

"Okay. I mean, I know Bobby would never do anything bad."

"What do you think Bobby might have done?"

"Nothing, probably. It's just . . . like when Bobby comes and visits, he always wants to know about everything that's going on, what Doctor Magnus is doing, what you are doing, stuff like that. He always wants to look in the computer and read about missions and stuff, and he was especially interested in what Mr. Tesla was doing, where he was going and when. But Bobby doesn't live anywhere near where we caught the kodors, he couldn't have had anything to do with Mr. Tesla disappearing, you know?"

"You're probably right, Jenna. Bobby most likely just likes to know about where you live and the other people who live there too. There's no harm in that. But he could have said something to someone else, not knowing the other person meant us harm, couldn't he?"

Jenna said slowly "I suppose. But Bobby would never, like, hurt anybody, you have to believe that."

"I'm sure you're right, but I'd like to talk to him, just in case he did mention to someone where Tesla was going to be. Where does he live?"

"I don't have his address, he lives somewhere out east; I just have his phone number. You can have it, but please don't be mean to him. I don't want him to get mad at me, you know?"

Will copied the number she gave him into his phone and said "Don't worry, I'm just going to ask him a few questions. If he told somebody I need to know who, but I'm sure you're right and Bobby didn't mean any harm." Actually Will was not at all sure of that, but there was no point in upsetting Jenna until he knew more.

Will tried the number Jenna had given him; Bobby would likely be more open with him if he was reassured by Jenna's presence. But all he got was a recording saying the number was no longer in service. He checked the number with Jenna and she confirmed he had it right; she tried calling on her own phone and got the same recording.

Jenna sat frowning. "That's not right, maybe he changed phone companies or something. I'm sure he'll call and explain."

Will was starting to think that Bobby might be a real lead. Tesla could have been kidnapped; it wouldn't have been easy, but it was possible, the trust fund vampires did it. And it would make Magnus feel better if he had disappeared unwillingly rather than abandoning her over a disagreement.

Will questioned Jenna closely about Bobby, but in spite of her thinking of him as her boyfriend, she really didn't know very many facts about him. He owned a big hardware store and had a couple of employees who ran it for him when he came to see her, but she didn't know the name of the store or where it was located. He had no family, he liked to watch sports on TV, he jogged twice a week, and he usually wore jeans and a T-shirt. As far as she knew he had no unusual habits nor did he speak any foreign languages. He said he was a type of Abnormal called an "Illyuatt", but Jenna didn't know what that was; she'd never seen anything particularly abnormal about him. Will had never heard of it either.

Will gave up. He'd have Henry bug Jenna's phone so they could trace and record the call, if Bobby called. Jenna promised to tell him right away if she thought of any way to find Bobby Mathis, but Will wasn't hopeful. Jenna had been glad to have Bobby's attention; she had never been suspicious of him or overly curious about his life on the surface that she didn't want to share.

Will went to update Magnus, and found her in her office looking no different than usual. However upset she had been by Tesla's disappearance, she had herself outwardly under control. She looked up sharply when he came in.

"Did you find out something?" she asked immediately.

"I think I have a lead. A guy named Bobby Mathis has been coming to visit Jenna periodically and apparently he's been very nosy, going through Sanctuary files and asking a lot of questions, especially about Tesla."

"You think there could have been an outside agency involved in Nikola's disappearance?"

"Bobby's phone number has been disconnected. Jenna hasn't talked to him since just before we left to get the kodors; she said she told him all about where we were going and why. So I think it's a possibility."

Will told her everything he had learned and watched her process the information. Helen said "That would explain a great deal; why Nikola hasn't contacted us or the vampires, why we can't find a trace of him anywhere, why he took nothing with him." _Why he left without a word to me. _"Will, what kind of Abnormal is this Bobby Mathis?"

"Jenna said he called himself an Illyuatt, but I've never heard of that before."

"They are very rare. They have the ability to reduce the bonding between their cells and appear to melt. Unfortunately they appear completely human otherwise, so that won't help us find him."

Will said "I told Henry to start looking. He's putting a bug on Jenna's phone in case the guy calls her, and he's looking at ownership of hardware stores, probably in the eastern US or Canada from Bobby's accent and speech patterns. But finding it . . . "

". . . may not be possible. He could have lied about it to give himself a legitimate source of income."

"If he was involved in a plot of some kind he could have lied about everything to Jenna, including his name."

"You don't think she's involved?" Helen asked.

"I'm sure she's not, except as an innocent dupe. She's one of those people who totally couldn't look you in the eye while lying."

"All right, I'll accept your assessment for now. Will, if Nikola's been kidnapped we need to find him. Whoever took him would have known from Mathis that he is a vampire. They could be experimenting with his blood, trying to get advanced technology out of him, or heaven knows what."

Will sat back, visibly concerned. He hadn't gotten as far as considering what anyone would want with Tesla yet, and the possibilities were truly appalling. "We don't know for certain somebody grabbed him, but if we go on that assumption, where do we start looking?"

"Follow up the Mathis lead, but if that dead ends, then I have no idea. But if someone has Nikola, then they've already had him for days; we need to find him, and quickly."

/

Doctor Petrocelli toyed with the idea of calling Helen Magnus and telling her that Nick was in the hands of the Cabal, just like Ashley had been. Susan had all the data out of Nick's phone so she had the personal cell numbers of everyone at the Sanctuary. It would distress Helen so, it was almost worth giving up the advantage of keeping her ignorant; almost, but not quite. If and when dear Helen figured out that Nick had been snatched and started searching, then she would call.

Of course that would mean changing the plan from just dropping Nick off at the Sanctuary to engineering his escape so Helen would welcome him in, but that wouldn't be overly difficult. The little bit of extra trouble was certainly worth making Helen agonize over him for a week or two; a little warm up for the main event.

Nicky's transformation was coming along slowly but surely. They were playing the "bad Helen" "good Susan" scenarios to him while he was drugged and running the audio while he was unconscious; sometimes he responded, sometimes he didn't, but it didn't really matter. Another day or two and she would be ready to start phase two. That had taken nearly a week for Ashley, better plan on two weeks for Nick. After that he would be a clean slate and she would own him and could begin to shape him as she wished.

It probably would be wise to give him a trial run before sending him back too. Nothing that would alert or alarm the Sanctuary, just a little controlled murder and mayhem, perhaps. She would have to think about that.

In a way it was almost too bad. Nick was intelligent, strong, and even kept his sense of humor while he was fighting her. She smiled a little at the thought of him nicknaming her "Suzy" when he couldn't stop her from calling him "Nick". He couldn't win, but she respected a good opponent. She would be sorry when he was gone, but she would do whatever she had to for revenge.


	5. Chapter 5 Lost and Searching

They were re-running the taxi scene. Nikola found it frustrating that he couldn't actually control his avatar beyond head movement. He could think and say whatever he wanted, but he still walked out into the street and was hit by the cab. They didn't always physically hit him, but this time they did. He swore at them, at Suzy, in Serbian.

The World War II scene came next. As soon as Helen, James and Nigel came into his lab, he started reciting Jabberwocky at them. The computer, or whoever was writing the dialog didn't know how to respond to that and the scene faded out.

The St. Regis hotel scene started. He told Suzy he hated her when she appeared, and begged Helen to kill the ratty old pigeon with her amazing death-glare. The scene ended abruptly and the helmet was removed.

Doctor Susan put the helmet down, crossed her arms, and looked at him disapprovingly. "That is no way to behave Nick. I'm trying to be your friend, but you have to cooperate."

Nikola was past having any manners. He stuck his tongue out and blew her a raspberry. "You have to drug me way better than that Suzy." He wanted to call her several far worse things, but he was still strapped down, helpless in front of her. Irritating her was fun, enraging her would be stupid.

Susan looked at him speculatively. Every time she reduced the dosage on the psychedelic drugs, he became conscious and uncooperative. His physical resistance to her drugs and his willpower were quite amazing, far beyond her previous experience. And he was a relatively young vampire; perhaps someday she would have a truly old one to work on, this was very good experience to prepare her for that. Still, progress with him was frustratingly slow.

"Are you hungry?" she asked. "I'm out of pronghorn but I have some fresh whitetail deer blood."

He admitted that he was, and she fed him. Nikola didn't like the agreement he'd made to not try to attack her while she fed him, but he needed real food to keep fighting. He was very aware, however, that cooperation was a slippery slope, and it would be easy to fall in with the scenes, play them out as intended each time rather than wreck them as often as he could. He didn't know why it mattered, but Suzy didn't like it so he tried his hardest to blow them as quickly and as thoroughly as possible.

She changed his IV drip, and added another drug into the line. Then she gave him the added injection in his arm. He groaned inwardly as he slid back into dream land.

_This was a new scene. Everything looked odd at first, then he realized he was seeing it from a lower position; he was suddenly very short? Two young girls, taller than he walked quickly past, patting him on his head as they hurried across the room. He recognized them._

_ "Angelina? Milka?" he asked dazed. This was his childhood home, and these were his two older sisters. _

_ "Go outside and play, Niko, we're trying to clean the house and your dirty shoes aren't helping" Milka said, in Serbian of course._

_ Angelina, the older girl, said enticingly "Dane is out by the barn, why don't you go see what he's doing?"_

_ Nikola nodded with a silly smile on his face. It had been so very long since he had seen his family, and he almost never heard anyone speak Serbian any more. Then it hit him. Dane was still alive. He turned and ran through the house, turning corners and avoiding furniture with old familiarity. He charged out the back door, letting it slam closed behind him. That made him wince a little, Papa didn't like it when he made so much noise._

_Dane was just mounting as he neared the barn. The horse was skittish, and Nikola knew not to approach it in a rush, but he couldn't control his avatar and continued to run directly at the animal._

_ "Dane, get off! Dismount at once!" he called desperately. But the horse shied violently and ran off at full speed with Dane clinging to its back. Nikola watched helplessly as the two disappeared down the road. _

_ "Nikola! What are you doing?" It was his mother behind him. He turned, defeated; he knew what was coming. She continued to scold him. "You know better than to run and shout at the horse. If anything happens to Dane, it's your fault."_

_ He looked up at her. Oddly, she looked a little like Helen Magnus. _

_ The scene shifted; he was back in the house, and Papa carried in poor Dane. The doctor was summoned and went in to him. Mama scowled at Nikola, and whispered to Papa who gave him a disapproving look. Nikola wanted to cry, but Papa did not approve of weakness in his sons._

_ The scene shifted again. The casket was in the parlor. There were flowers, Angelina and Milka were crying. His sister Marica was too young; she didn't understand what was happening. Papa talked to the other adults in the room; when he looked at Nikola it was with sadness and disappointment. _

_Mama looked very much like Helen Magnus now. She advanced on Nikola, took his hand and led him to the casket. Then she lifted him up so he could see his dead brother's face._

_ "Kiss your brother goodbye, Nikola. He was the hope of the family, and now he is gone and it is your fault. Your foolishness killed your brother."_

_ Nikola did as he was told, placing his lips on Dane's still ones for a moment before he was returned to the floor. Mama gave him a cold, disapproving look. She would never look at her second son any other way until he was long grown into a man. No matter how hard he tried, he could never be as good as her dead first born. _

_The scene shifted. He was reciting in front of the family. He stumbled over a long word, corrected it, and continued flawlessly through to the end of the piece. When he finished Papa said "That was nice, Nikola", but Nikola could see the disappointment in his eyes. Papa tried to be kind; he never said "Dane would have done it better." But no one else spoke after Papa's judgment and Nikola could hear those words plainly in the silence. The scene faded out._

Nikola could feel the tears running out of his eyes and down the sides of his face. He waited for the next scene to begin, but nothing happened, he just lay there in the silent dark helmet.

He felt the prick of the needle in his arm, and then all the scenes began replaying. He tried to disrupt them, but could only manage the occasional weak protest. There was no actual physical violence in the taxicab scene or the lab fire scene; they went by in a blur just like the others.

When he was back in his family scene again, he tried not to run at the horse, he didn't call out, but the animal shied anyway, his brother died anyway. It had happened; he couldn't stop it or change it. He had tried so hard to be like Dane for his parents, memorizing and reciting long passages to please them, practicing self-denial, being generous, making the name of Tesla famous. But it was never enough. He would never be as good as Dane, because in his parents' memories, Dane was perfect.

Nikola felt a cold wave pass through him; more drugs entering his system through the IV. The scenes played again, but they seemed different somehow.

_His lab burned around him. The woman seemed so angry at him, but he didn't know why. She seemed so desperate to belittle him, insult him, he felt sorry for her._

_ He was at Wardenclyffe, and she was there. He was angry at her, his career was ending but she could have prevented that if she had given him the money to complete the project. Still, if she had given him money he would have had to continue to associate with her, and he found the idea repugnant._

_ At the St. Regis, she was responsible for killing what he loved; he could only hate her for that._

_ When she ran him down in the street in New York, he wished he could have struck back at her somehow, but she was gone before he could get up._

_ In his WWII lab, she took away his friends and attacked his reputation. He wanted to destroy her, strip her of everything she held dear and make her suffer as she was doing to him._

_ In the catacombs she shot him and tried to kill him, and got John to help her injure him so severely he was forced to drain and kill the replacement friends he had made for himself just to survive. Someday he would get revenge for that, no matter how long it took._

_ When she came into his lab at the old Sanctuary and accused him of failure with the gun, he feigned concern, but inwardly he laughed. Seeing her daughter die was payback for his pigeon, but he owed her far more than that for everything she had done._

Nikola woke; the helmet was off of him and he was alone in the room. He felt groggy and headachy, and barely noticed the overhead lights were off. He closed his eyes and slept for a while.

When he woke the second time, Doctor Susan was there. She gave him another injection, and then asked him if he was hungry. He wasn't.

"Well then, would you like to get up?"

Nikola opened his eyes wider and looked to see if she was joking. "Sure" he said softly.

A young man had been standing back in the shadows. He came forward and he and Suzy undid the straps and unhooked his IV. Nikola wasn't sure he was awake.

They got him up into a sitting position and turned him so he was sitting on the edge of the table. Sitting up made Nikola dizzy, but they didn't rush him. After a couple of minutes, with one on either side of him, they eased him off the table on to his feet. He almost fell, but they supported him, and got him to start walking very slowly with their continued help.

They went out of the room, down the hall and into an elevator. Two floors up, they got out of the elevator and walked down another hall to a large room. It was dominated by a big enclosed tank of some kind, but they helped him to a padded chair nearby that looked something like a dentist's chair without the spit sink.

Nikola sat down with relief; his knees were starting to tremble. How long had he been on that table? There were straps on the chair, but only his wrist and ankles were restrained. The chair was adjustable and Suzy leaned him back until he said he was comfortable.

The young man left them alone. It seemed to Nikola that this would be a good time to escape, but he just didn't have the energy. Maybe he would later, after Suzy left. Meanwhile, she hooked up a new IV to the needle in his arm.

"Now that's better, isn't it?" she said, smiling some more. Nikola had to agree. "Yeah, much better. I don't have to go back to that table, do I?"

"No, we're done with the table. Do you need anything? No? Then I'll let you sleep for a while longer."

Suzy left him alone. Now, he should just tear himself out of the chair and escape. But instead he went back to sleep.

/

Robert Allen sauntered in the door, went up one flight of stairs and knocked on his sister's door. When she answered it, her face lit with delight.

"Bobby, I'm glad you're back. Come in for a drink."

While she got them beers, he dropped his suitcase and flopped on her couch.

"So, Molly, I heard it went off perfectly."

She handed him his beer and sat down. "It did. You should have seen poor Tesla's face when I melted right through his hands. Doctor Petrocelli called it exactly, he tried to jump clear at the last second and the train punted him a hundred feet down the tracks. We picked him up, no problem."

"Is she going to be able to turn him?"

Molly shrugged. "I don't see why not. She said it might take a little longer, but the drugs work on him so eventually he'll be our weapon. What's the latest from the Sanctuary?"

"Reena says Jenna may be unreliable now. That Zimmerman guy has been at her, and has got her thinking my nosiness might have something to do with Tesla's disappearance. And you know poor simple Jenna."

Molly nodded. "She's such an air-head. But Reena's smart so we should be able to keep getting inside info."

"Yeah, but I'm probably compromised; I'm not going to be able to go back, so we are going to need a new contact."

"I could go, no one there knows me."

Bobby squirmed a little. "I think I made a mistake. I told Jenna I was an Illyuatt."

"You what? Bobby, you idiot. Illyuatts are rare, if they found out I'm one they would link me to you immediately. So now I can't go in your place." Molly took a long swig of her beer. "Have you told Doctor Petrocelli yet?"

"No, I figured I'd practice on you first."

She took his empty bottle. "Go report in. And chew a piece of gum first, smelling like beer isn't going to improve your story any."

/

Henry gave up. He'd looked at every hardware store and every Bobby Mathis he could trace on the computer. There just wasn't any such person that matched Jenna's description, unless he was one of those nuts who were completely non-electronic. Probably not though, since he used Jenna's computer to look through the Sanctuary's files.

He went to Helen Magnus's office to give her the bad news. Will was already there, slumped in a chair. They both sat up straighter and looked at him expectantly when he walked in.

"Sorry, I can't find any trace of Bobby Mathis, or his hardware store."

Helen said "Dang" and Will said "Dammit".

Then Henry continued "But I did find something else interesting. There was a railroad incident less than a block from the warehouse while you were there. The engineer reported he saw two people on the tracks, and blew his whistle and braked. Then he only saw one person, and he thought he had hit the guy and finally got the train stopped. But a search found nothing, so the train continued on."

Will asked "And you think the guy that got hit was Tesla?"

"Dude, I just told you everything I know."

Helen said "It's a possibility. Depending on how hard he was hit, Nikola could have been struck and thrown quite a ways, gotten up and walked away."

Will objected. "But that doesn't explain why he didn't just come back to the warehouse or answer his phone. Well I suppose his phone might have been wrecked, but we drove around and we didn't see him anywhere by the tracks."

"If he was hit hard, he could have been down healing for hours. But afterwards, he should have called." Helen stared off into space, thinking. Will and Henry waited silently, trying in vain to come up with a scenario that included the train and Tesla being missing for over a week.

Finally Helen just shook her head. "It still doesn't make sense, unless someone else was involved. I'm going to have to investigate. Henry, can you find out where the engineer is and keep track of him?"

"Sure, I'll post updates to your phone."

"I'm going with you" stated Will.

"Thank you for the offer, but I need you here to run the Sanctuary. And no, Henry, you're not going either, we already discussed this."

"You can't go by yourself" said Will.

"Why not? This is an investigation, not a dangerous mission, and there's no one available to go with me who is qualified. I did a great deal by myself before I hired you, Will, and I've managed to survive this far. I'll leave in the morning."

She packed a small overnight bag and some of Nikola's medication, just in case she found him. She also dug out an old photo of him from 1940 or thereabouts. His suit looked outdated in the picture, but outside of that he hadn't changed at all. If she could at least confirm it had been him on the tracks, she might have a lead she could follow.

By early afternoon the next day she was in a railroad station talking to the engineer and crew from the engine that had stopped near the warehouse. She knew the Vice President of Operations for the railroad from a consultation on how to handle Abnormals who hitched rides on trains, and he had arranged it. The engineer, Earl, told his story simply.

"I saw what looked like two people on the tracks, and I blew the whistle but they didn't get off, I don't know why. When I saw that, I braked as hard as I could and kept blowing the whistle; there just wasn't anything else I could do, a locomotive has a lot of momentum and isn't easy to stop. I was getting close, and it looked like one of the folks had gotten off the tracks, but I thought it was too late for the other fellow. He tried to jump out of the way, and I guess he made it since we couldn't find him afterwards."

"Did you see anything else; other people, a car perhaps?" Helen asked.

"No ma'am, I can't see too far off to the sides at night from the engine and I was pretty focused on them."

"The man on the tracks; did you see his face?"

"Just a glimpse. He kind of looked back over his shoulder as he jumped."

Helen showed him the photo of Nikola. "Is that the man?"

The engineer looked at it closely. "It could be, but I couldn't swear this was him. Has he gone missing?"

"He has."

"Well, sorry to hear that."

Helen nodded and turned to the other members of the crew. "I understand that after the train stopped you searched the tracks. What did you find?"

One of the crew, a portly man named Paul, said "Not much. Me and Ed went down opposite sides of the train with flashlights and checked under the wheels way past where Earl said he saw the people on the tracks. Then we walked back up and searched ahead of the train for quite a ways. I was very happy to find nothing, believe me."

"And neither you nor Ed saw anything else at all? There was no one around, no one who heard the whistle and stopped to gawk, no cars at the crossing?"

Paul shook his head, but Ed hesitated. Helen waited hopefully.

Ed said "I did see someone when we went back along the train. I was still up near the engine but my flashlight just caught someone walking away from the train. It wasn't the man you're looking for though, it was a woman. I figured she was waiting to cross the tracks, and when the train stopped she realized it was going to be a while and decided to do something else instead of just stand there."

"Would you recognize her if you saw her again?"

"No, sorry, I saw her mostly in the flashing crossing lights, and they were behind her so I never saw her face. And I was looking mostly under and around the train; I didn't pay much attention to her. Although come to think of it, when I turned around to walk back up to the engine I noticed some taillights and somebody getting into a dark colored van. It could have been her."

Paul said "You talking about a van on your side of the train?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Because I saw one on my side of the train too. It was in the alley up ahead of the train. I can't see that it had anything to do with our stopping, it wasn't very close to the train and it was pulling out when I got down to the ground to start searching. But it was a dark colored van of some kind too."

Helen was perplexed. It was probably just a coincidence that there were two similar vans on the street at that time. Likely they had both been approaching the crossing, and seeing it blocked just veered off or turned around. But if the woman had been near the train and had gotten into one of the vans, perhaps it wasn't a coincidence at all.

"Ed, what would you say was the likelihood that the woman you saw by the train was the person who got into the van?"

"Well, I don't know, pretty good I guess. There aren't any houses or businesses over on that side of the tracks, it's mostly warehouses so there aren't many people walking around at night."

"Can either of you tell me anything else about the vans? Did you recognize the make or model, catch a partial plate number or even notice where the plates were from?"

Paul and Ed both shook their heads. She hadn't expected anything else, but she had hoped.

"Was there any writing or logos on the vans?"

Another pair of headshakes and continued headshakes were all the answers she got to her attempts to get any sort of additional information that might lead to finding the vehicles.

Earl looked puzzled. "Ma'am, if you don't mind my asking, what does a woman getting into a van have to do with your missing friend?"

"I don't know. But if she was the only other person around then she was likely the second person on the tracks with Nikola; which means she might know a great deal about what happened to him. Thank you for your cooperation, gentlemen. If you remember anything else, anything at all even if it doesn't seem important, please call me." She gave each of them her business card.

Helen rented a car and drove out to the warehouse. She was pleased to see it was back in business again, although the windows were all open and the workers were wearing masks. Well, the smell would dissipate over time.

She parked on the other side of the tracks behind an empty building. There was a narrow poorly maintained lane that ran parallel to the tracks and gave access to the back parking areas of a row of old brick buildings. Some of the buildings were empty and boarded up; the occupied ones had barred windows and grates that could be locked over the doors at night. This was not a good neighborhood, but there was no one out in back of the buildings, and only a few cars sparsely scattered in the weedy parking areas.

Helen started searching at the crossing and walked along the tracks past most of the buildings, then walked back down the lane, her eyes searching the ground. The likelihood of her finding anything after all this time was vanishingly small, but it would be foolish to be in the area and not look.

She walked down through the ends of the parking lots, and then back again on the sloping ground between the tracks and the lane. There she finally found something.

It was only a button, but it was a most peculiar button. The vampire society didn't buy plastic buttons from the surface, they made their own from materials at hand; painted or stained wood, polished stone, or metal. The heavy little black button she held in her hand was very likely of vampire manufacture.

She studied the ground where she found it. Intervening rains had done a thorough job of washing away any traces of what happened there. But she could piece the puzzle together in her mind.

A woman had lured Nikola to the tracks. They had been together there as the train approached, and she had somehow escaped both him and the train while Nikola had been struck and thrown, landing here. The dark van on this side of the train had picked up Nikola and the woman had gotten into another dark van on the other side of the train.

The whole thing screamed "plot". Had Nikola known the woman would be there, had he gone outside at that exact time to meet her? Even if he had, he wouldn't have gone alone without telling anyone if he thought there was any danger. Of course what most people would recognize as danger Nikola usually ignored, thinking his vampire self was impervious to nearly any peril. Well he hadn't been impervious to this one.

So now she was pretty certain she knew what had happened if not the why or the who. How did one trace an unknown woman and two dark colored vans with no more description than that? She didn't know, but she would set Henry on the task and hope for the best.

At least she was reasonably sure Nikola hadn't left her willingly, in spite of his theft of his rift node experiment. They were going to have words about that when she saw him again, but first she had to find him and likely rescue him. He was strong, intelligent, and multi-talented and might well escape on his own in most situations, but the people who took him had hit him with a train for heaven's sake. They knew what he was and they weren't underestimating him. He needed her help, and she wasn't going to fail him, no matter what it took. She was going to rescue Nikola Tesla if she had to move heaven and earth to do it.


	6. Chapter 6 Old Enemy, New Arrival

Nikola woke up feeling better than he had in days. The fact that he was sitting up in a chair in a normally lit room without a helmet over his head helped, too. Unfortunately, Suzy was also there with the young man who had helped him walk.

"Nick, this is Scott. He's going to assist me with the second phase of your treatment. This phase is likely going to be a bit unpleasant, but I can assure you the third and final phase will be easy for you."

"If this is a 'treatment', what are you treating me for?"

Suzy smiled at him. "Don't worry, you'll be just fine when it's all over. The first thing I want to do is take a baseline EEG. I understand from your biography that you were subject to seizures when you were young?"

"No, I wouldn't say that" Nikola said slowly, not quite sure what she had read and interpreted as a seizure. Scott was attaching electrodes to his head.

"The flashes of light, the unusual visual events, do you still have them?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Nikola knew exactly what she was talking about, he still saw flashes of light when excited, but he'd had that for so long he just automatically ignored it. Most of the other visual phenomena he'd suffered ended when he became a vampire. But he saw no need to explain anything to Suzy. Whatever she was doing, it wasn't for his benefit.

She ran the EEG, and then Scott removed the electrodes.

"You do have unusual electrical activity in both your occipital and temporal lobes."

"So now you know what the EEG of a genius looks like. So what?"

"So the next round of medication I'm going to give you can cause seizures. I'll have to use a lower dose than I would like, at least to start with; we don't want to cause permanent brain damage, do we Nick." She patted him familiarly on the arm. Nikola moved away from her touch as much as he could, but he couldn't move very far.

"Yeah, not causing permanent brain damage would be good, Suzy. It's not very fair of you not to give me any choice in the matter or even tell me why I'm risking the destruction of my intellect."

"Not yet; when we get to the final phase, you'll understand everything, dear." She injected him slowly with what looked to Nick was quite a lot of whatever-it-was.

The effect was almost immediate, but not overly unpleasant. His visual field blanked to solid dark blue; then sparkly flakes of green appeared and came toward him. Lines of color appeared at the right, heavily gold and yellow-green, which marched across to the left, growing brighter and becoming speckled with twinkling lights. Behind the lines of color was only grayness that turned into fluffy clouds. Nikola just let it happen, trying to give no outward sign that he was experiencing anything. Was someone talking to him?

Images of people appeared in the clouds, people he thought he knew but couldn't quite put names to. Among them was a man that was very hairy and odd-looking, not a human being at all, but he found he wasn't disturbed or frightened by the image.

So, just the usual visual effects; he hadn't seen that series in a long time, and rather enjoyed it. Then he lost consciousness.

"Was that a seizure?" Scott asked.

"Yes, but a very mild one. I'll up the dosage just a tad when he wakes up. Meanwhile, let's get him ready for the tank."

They released the brake on the chair and wheeled him over to the tank doorway. It took them a while to get him into the wet suit and set up all the necessary lines and tubes. Scott made sure the water in the modified sensory deprivation tank matched Nikola's body temperature. When all was ready, Suzy woke him up.

"Nick, we need you to help us get you into the tank. You'll like it in there; it's very dark and quiet. Come on, now."

Nikola was disoriented, but automatically tried to assist the hands tugging at him. They put a mask over his face, but he could breathe all right. He went lengthwise into a dark place, floating comfortably.

Doctor Petrocelli injected his IV line, and watched him for a minute. He twitched a bit, and his eyes began that odd staring at something that wasn't really there again. She closed the door, and set up an IV drip to keep him in what should be a steady state. She had been able to dose Ashley much more heavily and finish wiping out the remains of her willpower fairly quickly. Well, almost wiping out; one more day would have done it.

Scott stayed to monitor Nick's physical readings. He would call her if anything went beyond the acceptable parameters. This would be a short session, only four hours, but plenty of time for her to have a nice dinner and a long, relaxing bubble bath. Oh, and perhaps a quick call to Helen. That idiot Bobby had spoiled her little spy network, but her sole remaining agent in the Sanctuary had told her that Helen believed that Nick had been kidnapped, so the cat was out of the bag. She might as well make Helen suffer a bit before she died.

/

"Doc, I'm sorry, but there are dark colored vans all over the place. A lot of businesses have more than one, and here's a family with nine kids, they have two, and we don't even know if the vans were black, blue, or they could even be red. Red is the first color to gray out in low light, so there are just too many possibilities."

Henry stood awkwardly in front of her desk. Helen knew he hated failing at any task she set him, but she hadn't really thought he could succeed.

"Henry, it's all right. I expected as much, but we have to try any avenue we can think of, even if the chance of success is vanishingly small."

"There's got to be some way to find him" Henry said in frustration.

"We will find him, or he'll find us. You know Nikola, he always comes back." She tried to keep her voice upbeat, but she was pretending, and they both knew it.

"The people from the train haven't called with anything new?"

"No." _And it's been two days, if they were going to remember anything else they already would have._

Henry picked up the plastic cow from her desk and fiddled with it. "Hey, do you still have the autotype?"

"I checked it; no messages."

Henry nodded and put the cow back in its place next to the plastic sheep and the little Austrian flag, mementos of her Language of Flowers game with Nikola. "You're right, he'll be back."

Helen's private cell rang. She and Henry's eyes met in a moment of hope, and she snatched it up. "Hello?"

But it was a woman's voice on the other end, and not one she recognized.

"Well, Helen Magnus. You don't know me and I'm not going to tell you my name. But I'm the person who altered your daughter Ashley, mind and body."

Helen went cold inside and her eyes opened wide. She put her hand over the mouthpiece and mouthed "Trace this call!" to Henry, who grabbed his laptop and started typing furiously.

She spoke calmly; she needed to keep this woman on the phone as long as possible. "I don't believe you; everyone in the Cabal was killed."

"Not everyone. But that's not why I called. I just wanted you to understand what I'm going to do to Nikola Tesla."

"Nikola? You have Nikola? Prove it, put him on the phone."

"I don't have to prove it. I just wanted you to know how much I am enjoying my time with him. Of course, poor Nick is not enjoying it nearly as much as I am. Goodbye, Helen dear."

The line went dead. Helen looked at Henry, who was still typing furiously. Then he shook his head.

"I didn't have time to pinpoint it, but I narrowed it down to this area." He brought up a map with a hundred mile diameter circle on it. "And cross referencing with ownership of two vans that aren't white, gray, or silver, gives us . . ." Fifty two dots appeared in the circle.

Helens eyes flashed. "That call was their mistake. Now we have a place to start looking. Henry, that woman claimed to be the person who changed Ashley and created her five DNA clones. She is responsible for dozens of deaths. And now she has Nikola; we have to find her."

"We'll find her. You know I hate to say it, but we're assuming both vans were owned by the same person or organization. One or both could have been borrowed, rented or stolen."

"Perhaps, but considering the way they were used, I doubt either was rented or borrowed. Check for thefts, if you find two on or around the day Nikola disappeared, add it to the map. Print out a list of those locations. Come morning, I'm going hunting."

"Doc, you're not going by yourself."

"No, I'll take a team and plenty of firepower. When I find that woman . . ."

Helen didn't finish her sentence, she didn't need to; Henry understood. "I'll have the list on your desk in half an hour, and I'll let Will know you want to see him." Helen nodded and Henry left.

Helen picked up the plastic cow and held it tight in her hand. "Hold on Nikola, please hold on. I'm coming."

Her meeting with Will was short and to the point. He brought Henry's list with him and they went over strategy and routes. Will would recall Kate and three other agents that knew what Nikola looked like and were capable and experienced with weapons. Two teams of three led by Helen and Will would start at opposite sides of the circle and work their way towards each other; if either found the right location, they would wait for the other team to join them before going in. They decided on who would be on the teams, and Will went to contact the others and establish rendezvous times and locations.

Helen retired to her suite. She packed a small bag; fifty-two locations would take more than one day, especially since they would have to be absolutely sure before crossing each off the list. She laid various weapons out on her bed and chose which ones she would take. She checked them carefully, added ammunition and assorted holsters and sheaths, and put everything with her packed bag.

She was fine while she was doing that. It felt like she was finally accomplishing something toward getting Nikola back. But once she had finished, she couldn't rest. She paced for a while, but she knew she shouldn't wear herself out the night before the mission so she would sit down and pick up a book. But she couldn't concentrate, and would shortly find herself on her feet again.

When bedtime neared she made a pot of chamomile tea and sipped it while trying to focus on a favorite book. But her mind kept going to Nikola and what he must be going through. She didn't know exactly what had been done to Ashley, she had only seen the result. Ashley would have fought physically, fiercely, as long as she could.

The Cabal would be able to control Nikola physically. He would test their restraints, but he wouldn't waste his energy in a fight he couldn't win. It was the mental battle that made her sick to her stomach. Nikola identified himself with his mental abilities. If the Cabal won that fight, what would be left? Even if, no when, they rescued him, would he still be the Nikola she had known for so long? She loved him as he was, as annoying as he could be sometimes, how would she feel if he were different? How would he feel toward her after the Cabal mauled his intellect, or for that matter, towards himself?

She went to bed, but it took an hour for her to finally fall asleep. She didn't get to sleep very long though. She woke to someone pounding on her door and calling "Doc". Henry?

Helen grabbed her robe and went to see what was afoot. When she opened the door, Henry was extremely agitated.

"Doc! It's Erika, she's having the baby!"

"Slow down, Henry. Describe exactly what has happened."

"She had a contraction; it woke her up, and that woke me up, and I got Biggie and he's taking her to the infirmary, and now I'm getting you."

"Her water hasn't broken?"

"I don't know, I don't think so."

"Then there really isn't any rush. I'll dress and meet you in the infirmary." Henry nodded and dashed off. Helen smiled after him; expectant fathers tended to get so much more excited than the woman actually having the baby. She went and dressed, glancing at the clock. It was just after four.

Helen hoped Erika really wasn't having the baby now. She had a vampire to rescue.

When she got to the infirmary she shooed both Big Guy and Henry out so she could examine Erika in private. Since Erika's pregnancy was so unique, she didn't know if the baby was full term or not. She hadn't expected the baby to be born quite this soon, but the pregnancy had already gone for over a year due to her success in slowing the pregnancy so the anti-HAP drugs Erika had been on could clear her system.

As Erika undressed, Helen noted there was some spotting, both blood and amniotic fluid. The examination revealed the baby's lungs were sufficiently developed, and the cervix was beginning to dilate. Erika's water broke soon after; baby Foss was on his or her way.

Helen got Erika settled for labor. It would be some hours before the baby came. Then she went out and told Henry, who rushed in to Erika. Big Guy asked "What can I do? Boil water or something?"

"Actually, yes. I could use a cup of tea. In fact a light breakfast for all of us would be nice."

"Should I wake Will?"

"Let him sleep. He'll be getting up in a little while anyway, and he isn't going to miss anything by sleeping another hour."

She was going to have to stay behind for now, but Will was capable of starting the search for Nikola. She was torn. She wanted Nikola found quickly, but she hoped Will didn't find him before she could get there; she wanted to be there when they took him away from that Cabal woman. But for now she needed to be here for Henry and Erika.

Will found her in the kitchen drinking more tea after finishing her egg and toast with marmalade. Helen only needed to check on Erika once an hour to track the dilation of her cervix, and in between had time for other activities.

"Why didn't you wake me?"

"No reason to; there's nothing you can do for Erika or Henry. Will, you're going to have to start the mission on your own."

Will poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down. "Which means I'll miss the birth of Henry's child" he said unhappily.

"I'm afraid so. Keep in mind the timing isn't good for either of us, but it's not Erika's fault- or Nikola's."

"I just found out Brent fell off a ladder and broke his leg yesterday. He'll be fine, but that means it will just be me, Kate, George, and Jerry. I guess I'll put Kate in charge of a team with Jerry, and George and I would be the second team."

Helen nodded and sipped her tea. "I'll be there as soon as I can. If there are no complications that could be as early as tonight, but more likely tomorrow. Just be very thorough, Will. It will take longer, but not as long as having to revisit each location."

Will just said "Right." He knew Helen trusted him with the mission, she was just worried about Tesla and overcompensating for her inability to be present during the search.

"Keep in touch" Helen said as Will stood. Will replied "You too. I want to know whether it's a boy or girl the minute everyone else knows. Have they picked out names yet?"

Helen shook her head. "Henry thought it might jinx the birth to have names ready, but they've discussed it at length I know. Good hunting, Will."

"I'll say goodbye to Henry and Erika. Kate and George are meeting me at the plane at seven, and Jerry will meet us at the airport when we arrive."

Will left and Helen got up and went to her office. Henry was supposed to be researching the fifty-two locations on his computer today and feeding the teams info on each one before they went in. She would do as much of that as she could in between her visits to Erika. She might as well start now.

Will explained the revised plan to Kate and George on the plane. George Granger was a fairly recent addition to the Sanctuary team; he had been a bodyguard to an unscrupulous Abnormal collector who had tried to collect Nikola, but he had shown himself to be both capable and kind and had taken to Sanctuary work. The fact that both he and Kate had some dark spots in their backgrounds didn't bother Will. The important thing was who they were now, not who they had been.

Jerry Carou was waiting when they landed. The self-styled wererat had been part of the Eastern European Sanctuary team for quite a while, and had met Nikola on the mission to investigate blood-drained bodies in that region. He was single and seemed pleased to be paired with Kate.

Will gave them a final briefing and made sure everyone had maps and routes. He called in to Magnus, put her on speaker and got what information she had on the first two locations for each team.

The first three locations were typical of what they would encounter in their search. A florist shop with two delivery vans and four total employees offered no real place to conceal Nikola. When approached directly they weren't pleased by the disruption of their business but gave the Sanctuary people a quick tour of their facilities and allowed them to look in the vans.

The same thing happened at a plumbing repair company with five trucks. The only difference was that Kate and Jerry had to wait for hours in order to look through all the trucks as they shuttled in from repair jobs. Kate thought it a total waste of time, especially since the vans were so full of plumbing supplies there wasn't room for them to carry people, but she followed her instructions.

A larger local distribution warehouse had vans and small trucks, a fence and a gate guard who didn't want to let Will and George in. They finally convinced him to call a foreman, who came to the gate and listened to their story of a missing person with dementia who might have climbed the fence and who might be hiding in the warehouse or one of the vehicles, or at least might have left a clue behind if the mythical person had been there.

The foreman was doubtful but sympathetic and offered to have his men search the place, but no, they didn't want to put him out, if they could just walk around and look? He gave them his assistant to escort them around. The size of the place gave Will the excuse to split off to check one end of the warehouse while George and the assistant checked the other. That allowed Will to find and go through the mileage logs for the warehouse vehicles. He found they didn't deliver at night, and none of the vans showed any mileage for the night Nikola had disappeared.

He and George completed the search, and did a perfunctory look inside all the vehicles parked nearby, but didn't bother waiting for the other vehicles currently making deliveries to come back.

By the end of the business day each team had done three locations. They met at a family restaurant to eat and compare notes. To continue in the evening would mean breaking and entering, and since at least fifty-one of the van owners were innocent, they decided to keep their search to legal methods as much as possible. Will called Helen again and reported on their progress. She told him no baby yet; soon though, she said.

After Helen hung up, she went back in to Erika, giving Biggie a reassuring smile as she passed him. He had taken on the job of pacing in the outer room. He liked Erika very much and looked on Henry almost as a son, so she understood he might be a little anxious. But she suspected he was pacing because he thought someone should rather than because he couldn't sit still; Biggie just wasn't a nervous type of person.

She was glad to see Erika was maintaining her composure. The main danger was if the pain and stress induced her to change forms while the baby was in the birth canal. Helen had given her something mild to help prevent that, but it wouldn't stop a determined attempt at transformation.

Henry had actually gone from nervous excitement to being a rock. He was calm and supportive and Helen was very proud of him. The most difficult thing had been convincing him to not film every detail of the birth; he and Erika had compromised on filming their first look at the baby after birth, and their first time holding him/her. Erika kept saying "her" and Henry kept saying "him", but neither of them cared very much which it turned out to be and it had become something of a game between them.

The moment finally came. The baby's head crowned; another contraction and a push and there were the shoulders, and one more contraction and push and the baby slid out.

"It's a girl" Helen announced, "and she is just perfect." Helen performed the necessary medical functions, cleaned and wrapped the tiny girl, and presented her to Erika. Henry hit the remote to start the camera as Helen approached.

Erika said "She's beautiful" as she took the tiny bundle in her arms, and Henry agreed. He had been warned that newborns didn't immediately have that pink perfection one expected in a tiny baby, so he wasn't surprised at anything except how much he loved her at first sight.

Medically the birth wasn't done, and Helen stayed close to ensure the placenta was delivered and there was no excessive bleeding. The birth had been remarkably easy and straightforward, and she was grateful for that. She was capable of handling any complications, but was very glad there hadn't been any.

She let Biggie go in for just a minute to coo over the baby, then went to clean up and call Will and his team to announce the arrival. She would stay nearby for the next few hours just in case, but hopefully would have nothing to do. Biggie went to the kitchen to make up a tray of finger foods, soda, and juice for the new parents to snack on while they bonded with their child.

When Helen was sure that everything was fine with Erika, she got something to eat herself and went to her suite. Tomorrow she would be able to join the search for Nikola. Even though Henry and Erika were first time parents they were both sensible people and Biggie would be around to help if they weren't sure what to do. He had learned about taking care of babies with Ashley and could handle almost anything on his own.

Thinking of Ashley led her back to thinking about Nikola. How would he react to having a baby in the house? They hadn't discussed children at all. At her age she was fairly sure she didn't want to be a mother again, although her youthful physical condition would permit it if she chose. As far as she knew Nikola had never had any children, but there was a sixty year gap in their history that he refused to discuss, so she couldn't be sure.

She very much hoped she would have the chance to see his reaction, that when they rescued him he would still be the old unpredictable Nikola Tesla that could amuse her so. Tomorrow she was going to go find him, if she had to search every inch of that hundred mile circle herself.

A/N: Tiem625, sorry I totally forgot to thank you for your reviews when I posted the last chapter. I very much appreciate your comments and support.

Saphyr88- I loved your review, thank you.

Everyone: What do you think Henry's baby should be named? I'm thinking "Helen" for her middle name, but I'm open to suggestions on her full name.


	7. Chapter 7 The Search Ends

Doctor Petrocelli stopped the IV drip and opened the door to the tank. She observed as Nick slowly stopped twitching and began to wake up. When he seemed to be aware of his surroundings she told him to come out of the tank and he obediently moved to the door. She helped him get out.

This had been his fourth tank session and they had stopped strapping him down after the second. Nick was quite docile and she would be able to move him to phase three of her reprogramming plan soon; but she didn't want to rush it.

"Nick, would you like to get dressed? We have some clothes for you. They're not as nice as what you were wearing when you came here, but you'll get a lovely suit to wear once you complete phase three."

Nick nodded, and took the clothes he was handed. He considered the jeans, t-shirt and trainers play clothes, but they were much better than pajamas. Suzy helped him peel out of the wetsuit and he dressed. It didn't matter to him if she saw him nude, she'd already seen him that way before, and she didn't care so why should he?

He was allowed to walk around as long as he stayed in the room. He went to the refrigerator and got a bag of blood, microwaved it and ate. He tossed the empty bag in the medical waste bin, just like he'd been told to. It bothered him a little to be eating just straight animal blood; he needed more than that, didn't he? It was probably okay for a while; he didn't feel bad.

"Suzy? I like the animal blood you have for me, but don't I need some vitamins too?"

She and Scott were going over the readouts from his latest tank session, but she paused and looked at him. "You're fine for now, Nick, and it will only be a few days until you go back to the Sanctuary. You do want to go back don't you?"

The word "sanctuary" seemed familiar but he wasn't sure exactly what Suzy meant by it. "What's the Sanctuary and why should I go there?"

"You have something to do there. That nasty woman Helen is there, isn't she? We'll talk more about that when you're finished with the tank. For now, just trust me."

"Oh. Okay." Was it okay? He didn't know, but trusting Suzy didn't seem like a very good idea. He wasn't sure he remembered Helen; was she the one that had been very mean to him for a long time, or maybe she had been nice to him? He wasn't sure about that either. He went back and sat down in his chair, slouching and bored.

"Why can't we just do phase three now? This room is boring, the tank is boring, and I want some wine" Nick complained. He remembered wine, it had tasted good.

"You have to be patient; you can have wine when we get to phase three. I've told you that before."

"There's nothing to do here, there aren't even any windows to look out of."

Doctor Susan turned away from her computer. Nick had started complaining on his last break from the tank and she was getting tired of his whining. This one was scheduled for six hours, and she didn't think she could put up with it for that long. Still, the fact that he was acting so childish was a good sign; the more broken down his personality, the more she could shape it when she rebuilt it in phase three.

"Scott, why don't you get Nick some books to read? Would you like to read for a while, Nick?"

"No, I haven't seen outside for a million years, I want to look out a window."

"There aren't any windows on this floor Nick." There actually were windows in the apartments across the hall, but Nick didn't need to know that.

"So what? Why do we have to stay on this floor?" Nick asked sullenly.

Scott looked at Doctor Susan and offered "I could take him to the stairwell; he could look out the big window there."

"If I let you look out the window on the stairwell, will you be good afterwards and settle down with a book?"

Nick nodded vigorously. "I'll be good, I promise."

"All right, Scott, but take a guard and only five minutes. I don't want him noticed from the street."

Scott led the way, and had one of the guards outside the door follow them. Nick was pleased he could see the daylight coming in at one end of the dim hallway. He hadn't been at all sure it was daytime.

At the end of the hall he pushed past Scott and began eagerly taking the half flight of stairs two steps at a time down to the landing that had a window nearly as wide as the stairs and about eight feet high. Half way down, he threw himself across the landing into the window, using his arms to protect his head.

It shattered with a loud boom as he went through, cutting him severely as he fell the two and a half stories to a parking lot. In the air he suddenly thought there was something he should have done before he jumped, but it was too late now. There were no cars parked directly beneath him to break his fall, and it hurt a great deal when he landed. His knee gave way in one leg and his fibula snapped in the other as his ankle twisted. Falling that little way shouldn't have hurt like that.

Blood and glass spattered around him and he closed his cuts leaving some glass in his body, but stopping the bleeding. At least he remembered how to heal himself. He heard shouting above him as he quickly healed the damaged knee and broken leg. No time for complete healing, it just had to hold until he was safe. He got up and ran, ignoring the sharp pains in both legs.

Alarms were going off before he got all the way across the parking lot, and there were people coming out the doors after him. He didn't want them to catch him; Suzy would be mad and would do bad things to him, so he ran as fast as he could. But he wasn't so fast now with his injured legs, and he would be on foot and they would probably have cars. He had to get off of the street as soon as he could.

He ran across a street, dodging honking cars, ran between some businesses and across a smaller street. He saw houses to his right, and swerved toward them. He had a better chance of getting out of sight there.

The squeal of tires behind him made him glance back; a black van had turned on to the street a block down and was coming up behind him fast. That must be Suzy's people, coming after him. He ran into a backyard and started climbing over fences and running past startled dogs and people, backyard to backyard.

He checked behind him and to his right and spotted the van so he ran left, across another small street and into the backyards of the next block. A second black van went by going fast; it must be more people chasing him. He was going to be trapped if he kept running, he needed to hide.

But where could he hide? He could go up on a roof, but it would be hard to get there with his injuries, and if they found him he would be trapped. This block was quieter; he hadn't seen anyone in the back yards at all yet so maybe he could find a place in one of the houses or garages. He crossed a drive with a pickup parked in it and saw a stairway down to the basement of a house ending in an open door.

Nick dived down the stairs, through the door and slid to one side so they couldn't see him from outside. He changed himself so he could see in the dimly lit basement.

It was silent except for his panting. There was sheet-covered furniture to one side of the outer door, boxes piled on the other. Ahead was a wooden stairway that led up into the house and past that was the furnace and water heater. The door at the head of the inside stairway opened, and he dived behind a covered couch and under a shrouded table.

He heard a man's voice say "Let me know when you decide what you want to do with all this stuff." A woman with a quivery voice answered back "I will. Thank you so much for helping me; I don't know what I would have done without you."

"No problem" the man answered, and Nick heard him thump down the stairs. He held his breath as the man walked past his hiding place to the outer door and closed it firmly behind him. Nick lay still listening for a long time. He heard the pickup engine start and drive away, and the occasional creak of the floorboards above him. When the TV went on, he relaxed and changed back to the way he had been before, then crawled out from under the table and looked around.

There were only four small windows high up in the walls letting in a little daylight. So it was dim inside and it would be hard for anyone outside to see him unless they put their face right up against the window. Suzy and Scott might do that, but he had a little time before they gave up and got out of the vans to look for him.

He took a couple of seat cushions off of the couch and put them under the table. He opened several lightweight boxes and found a blanket and took that with him as he arranged a nest for himself. Then he crawled in and pulled the sheet on the table a bit so it hung nearly to the floor on the three sides away from the couch. Even if Suzy looked in the windows she wouldn't be able to see him.

Nick stripped off his damaged shirt and wrapped himself up in the blanket. He sat on the cushions, leaning back against the couch. He needed to finish healing his knee and leg, and then get all the shards of glass out of himself. He would have to force the glass out which would reopen a lot of the wounds, but he hoped the blanket would absorb the blood; there was no need to make a mess on the woman's couch cushions. He pulled the tape off of his arm and removed the IV needle. That had been an irritation for a long time and finally healing the tiny wound was a relief.

It was fully dark by the time he finished and put his ragged t-shirt back on. He was tired and wanted to sleep for a while but he needed to wake up while it was still dark so he could get away. He hoped he could make himself wake up when he wanted to; he used to be able to do that, didn't he? Maybe by then Suzy and her friends would give up looking for him, at least for the night. If not, then they would all be tired and he had a better chance of sneaking past them.

He rolled up the bloody glass and needle in the blanket to throw away later; he didn't want anybody to accidently hurt themselves with it. The TV above him was turned off as he lay down. For a while he heard the woman walking around, and then it was quiet. He went to sleep.

When Nick awoke, it was still dark, but he felt much better, although a little hungry. He put the cushions back on the couch, and looked in the boxes some more, hoping to find a different shirt since his was all sliced and stained; but there were only sheets and stuff in the boxes, no clothing. His jeans weren't too bad, there were just a few cuts and stains by the knees; they were thicker and had held up better to the glass than his shirt. Well, if he was lucky no one would see him anyway.

Taking the blanket with him, he unlocked the outer door, reset the lock, and closed it behind him. It was safer for the lady who lived there if the door was locked, then bad people couldn't get in. He went up the stairs slowly, listening and turning his head, a little scared and hoping no one was around. But the backyard was quiet and deserted. There were a couple of plastic trash cans by the garage, and he opened one, shoved the blanket to the bottom past a bag of garbage, and quietly closed the lid.

He decided to go back the other way; Suzy would look for him in the direction he had been going, so he would try to fool her. He might get away if he could get past her building and go far away from it.

He moved to the front of the house and looked up and down the street. There were some cars parked down a ways, but there didn't seem to be anyone in them. He saw no vans at all. He hoped Suzy always used black vans; it would make her and her friends easy to spot.

Nick moved quickly across the street, past the house on the other side, through the backyard into the next yard, and up to the front of that house. He checked that street. There were a lot of cars parked along the curb, of all kinds. He couldn't be sure if there were black vans or not. But two houses down there were bushes that went from the house out to the sidewalk. He went around the backs of the houses to the bushes, crouched low and ran behind the bushes quickly to the sidewalk, across it and between a sedan and an SUV. He stopped there, listening and waiting, but nobody yelled or got out of a van.

He was scared to go out where Suzy might see him, so he tried to go fast as he crossed the street and the front yard of a house and made it to the backyard. He turned right and moved through the backyards, ducking back behind a house as he saw headlights moving on a nearby street. He didn't look to see if it was a van, he just hid until it passed.

Nick moved from block to block, hiding whenever he saw any headlights anywhere near him, until he was well past the place where Suzy lived. Then there weren't any more blocks of houses to hide behind. In front of him was a bunch of little stores, and the sun was just starting to come up. He hoped he was far enough away from where Suzy would be looking for him that he would be safe on the street; he ran out into the open, his heart pounding.

He went down the empty street past the stores at a fast lope, keeping his eyes and ears open. He ran for ten minutes before he heard a car coming and hid in a doorway. A dark blue sedan sped past, the driver paying no attention to him.

He peeked out; the street was still fairly empty, but it was getting light and there would be a lot of people around soon. Nick had no idea what day it was, but he sort of remembered that weekends were different than week days. But either way he would need a new place to hide during the day.

It bothered him a little that he had no idea where he was going. For now, anyplace away from Suzy would do, but sometime he had to find food and a safe place so he wouldn't have to keep running away. Did he have friends or family that could help him? He couldn't remember, exactly. He vaguely remembered the faces of some people that might have been his family, but he had the feeling that most if not all of them were dead. Had Suzy killed them, or that other woman, Helen? He thought not, but he wasn't sure. All he knew for sure was the one thought he had been able to hold on to- get away from Suzy.

He had chanted that to himself whenever he had been awake enough. It had been the most important thing to remember, but now that he had gotten away . . . well he would keep going away from Suzy, but he felt he should be headed toward something, not just running away. But where?

The area he was in still had some stores, but also empty lots and a few houses. He came to a place where the street went over a little creek. He hesitated, but decided that getting off the main street would be safer. The water was down lower than the streets, and he would be harder to spot down there.

Nick jumped a chain link fence easily and went down under the road and moved downstream, away from Suzy. The ground sloped down on both sides to the water, but it wasn't too steep for him to walk on and right next to the creek it was fairly flat, although there were stones and a lot of trash there. He trotted for another hour until he found a small hollow under a middling-sized tree across from an empty lot. It was a good place, out of sight of any road or building. He knelt down and drank from the creek. It might not be very clean, he didn't know, but it was cool and didn't taste bad.

He looked for minnows and frogs for a while, just for fun, but he didn't find any. The trash in that part of the creek wasn't very interesting either, just a part of a chair and some old junk he couldn't identify. He put a couple of leaves from the tree in the water to see which one would float down faster. In a little while he got tired of playing and went over by the tree.

There were tall weeds and grass along the creek. When he sat down under the tree he could just see over them, but nobody would likely see him unless they were close to him. It was going to be a long boring day, but being bored and safe was better than anything else that had happened to him lately.

At least he had time to think now. He lay back, closed his eyes and relaxed. The leaves overhead moved in a mild breeze, making patterns of shadow and light that danced across him. Behind his closed eyes, the flickering light was almost hypnotic.

His memories of the dark silent tank were pretty clear. The tank hadn't seemed very bad, and Suzy had wanted him to be inside in the dark. But every time he came out it seemed he had forgotten more and more. He thought if he had gone back one or two more times, he would just have stopped remembering everything; everything in his head would have been all gone. Whenever he had been awake enough he chanted to himself "get away from Suzy, get away from Suzy". So he remembered that, but not much else. He had gotten away from Suzy, now he had to remember all the things he had forgotten, if he could.

He lay under the tree in the flickering light, sounds of traffic in the distance. He remembered a lot about Suzy, and Scott, but when he tried to think of anything before them his mind just kind of stopped. It was frustrating, but the harder he tried the less he remembered. He had to relax and just let himself drift, and if there was anything else in his head maybe he would find it. After drifting in a near-dream state for a while he saw mental flashes of people, heard parts of sentences, but it was all a jumble and some of it was from a long time ago, too long ago to be real. But if those memories weren't real, why were they in his head?

An image gradually came to him of a huge old gray stone building on a river in an old city- Old City? That meant something, but he wasn't sure what. He let himself drift some more, and gradually grew to think that the place was west and north of where he was, but far away. Well, he didn't have any better idea where to go. Maybe that odd-looking building was just something he had made up, but he didn't think it was. He had to go somewhere, he might as well go and find out if it was real.

It was far away, it would take a long time to walk there. Maybe someone would give him a ride or he could steal a ride on a train . . . no, he didn't want to go on a train. He liked trains, didn't he? Maybe he did, but right now he wanted nothing to do with them. One of those flashes of memory he had seen was of a train coming at him, the bright light in his eyes and pain . . . no more trains, at least not until he knew more.

Maybe he could "borrow" a car. But cars needed gas, and he didn't have any money so it would have to be a lot of cars. He wondered if he got in a car if he would remember how to drive. He couldn't remember driving, but that didn't mean very much. But maybe he didn't know how to drive; he wished he remembered more. It was so frustrating not knowing who he was or what he could and couldn't do.

He should walk for a day or two to get farther away, and then try to get a ride. He doubted anyone would pick him up though, he probably looked pretty awful with his shirt all torn and stained.

Nick napped and drifted mentally the rest of the day, sometimes watching the clouds and the patterns of the leaves above him as the gentle breeze moved them about. He hoped he would remember more, but all he got were snatches of memories that told him nothing useful. Except he did see one woman a lot; at least he thought it was the same woman, but sometimes her hair was blond and sometimes it was dark. Maybe that was the "Helen" woman Suzy kept talking about. Suzy didn't like Helen. Did that make Helen his friend, or just another enemy?

Right now he wasn't himself, he knew that much. He felt lost and alone and a little angry. He didn't even know if any of his feelings and snatches of memory were real, or something Suzy had put inside his head. She had told him he should go to the Sanctuary, a word that now connected in his mind with the building he remembered. He didn't want to do anything Suzy had told him to do, but Helen might be there. He didn't know who Helen was, but she was connected to him somehow and was the only clue he had to his past except for Suzy and Scott, and he wanted nothing to do with them.

When the sun was going down and the light fading, he got up and took another drink of water. It was okay, but he was hungry and water wasn't very satisfying. He tried to think of something he would like to eat, but he couldn't think of anything that would taste good. The bags of animal blood had been okay, but he didn't know where to get more of those now. He continued walking down the creek. He wanted to stop and play in it some more, but he didn't. Suzy might not be right behind him chasing him, but she was probably still looking for him and he had to get away.

Another little creek joined the one he had been following and turned it into a small stream. It was fully dark by the time he realized he had entered a park. There weren't any fences along the stream any more, and there wasn't any trash. The grassy banks were mowed and there were lots of big trees. It was nice.

Nick had changed himself again so he could see better in the dark. He climbed up the bank away from the water and stood listening. Past some bushes he could see and hear a man and woman talking, and she giggled. He moved away from them.

Farther down the stream widened into a pond. There was a bench nearby with an ordinary looking man sitting on it, drinking out of a bottle in a paper bag. Nick approached silently from behind. He was hungry, and there weren't any big animals around, except humans. This one would do; but that thought confused him, do for what?

From behind, Nick jumped completely over the bench and man, turning in mid-air and landing facing the man and directly in front of him. The man's eyes opened wide in surprise and he opened his mouth but didn't have time to yell. Nick was instantly on top of him, one hand over his mouth, pushing his head to one side to expose his neck.

Nick's fangs were on the man's neck; his feeding fangs plunged into the jugular vein. The man resisted only for a moment, then went limp. Nick drank his fill and pulled in his feeders. The blood hadn't tasted as good as it should have, whatever the man had been drinking had tainted it somewhat.

Nick backed off of him. He had just jumped on a man and drunk his blood. He hadn't meant to do that, he shouldn't have done that, why had he? For the first time, he really noticed the claws on his hands, the fangs in his mouth. No one else he'd seen had fangs and claws. He was some sort of monster, and he'd done something bad. Tears stung his eyes and he swallowed. He didn't want to be a monster. When he thought that, the fangs and claws went away; but he couldn't see as well either.

But maybe he wasn't a monster, exactly. Suzy hadn't said he was or minded when he drank the little bags of blood from the refrigerator. But he thought most people didn't drink blood, just him. They ate other things, and he used to too, didn't he? He wasn't sure. So maybe he was just different somehow. But he shouldn't jump on people and drink their blood; that was wrong. He was sorry, but he couldn't tell the man that, the man wasn't awake.

The man was sitting slumped on the bench. Nick looked at him closely and saw that he was breathing. That was good. And his neck didn't look too bad, he just had a couple of little red spots, like mosquito bites. So at least he hadn't hurt the man very much. That made Nick feel better.

He lifted the man's legs and turned him so he was lying on the bench; then he pushed him over so he was face down. Nick pulled the man's wallet out of his back pocket, but there was only three dollars in it and not much else. Nick put it back; he didn't want the man's last three dollars. If there had been a lot of money he could have taken some and bought a new shirt.

But the man was wearing a nice black jacket; Nick pulled that off of him and tried it on. It fit pretty well, and it was good enough to cover up the tattered t-shirt. He felt bad taking the man's jacket, but it wasn't cold and he needed it more than the guy sleeping on the bench.

Nick picked up the bag the man had been drinking from. Inside was a bottle, but it wasn't wine. He unscrewed the cap and sniffed it; it smelled bad, and he put the cap back on, put the bottle back in the bag and the bag on the ground where the man and left it.

Nick turned back to the water. The stream ended at the pond, there was a culvert the water went into at the far end. But he was far enough away now, he felt he would be safe on the street. He left the park and began to jog west.

/

Helen joined Kate and Jerry in the search for the vans and the woman that had taken Nikola. Two fruitless days went by, the two teams covering another twenty-six of the locations Henry had identified. Henry himself was back on the job, feeding them what information he could unearth about each place before they visited.

Henry looked rather ragged when he passed Will information on his computer. Little Angelina Helen had decided she didn't want to sleep more than two or three hours at a time, and had the lung power to ensure her parents didn't either. Erika got up twice as often as Henry, but both were exhausted from not getting a decent night's sleep night after night.

Today both teams would be working in the same area, at least for the morning. There was a cluster of five businesses in and around a business park that had dark colored vans, and they were hoping to move through the area quickly; Henry's information hadn't indicated anything unusual about any of the businesses.

The two teams parked their rental cars next to each other. But when they got out of the cars, Helen's gaze went to one building in particular. There was someone sweeping up glass in a parking lot, and a large window near the top of the building was boarded up.

She stopped Will before he and George split off. "Will, over there. What do you make of that?"

Will shrugged. "Somebody broke a really big window; the glass is on the ground, so it was broken from inside."

"I've been reading the local papers every day, and I haven't seen anything about anyone going out a window. Surely from that height a person falling would have been killed or severely injured."

"It might have just happened today, and it might not have been broken by someone going through it."

"Perhaps, but more likely it happened yesterday or the day before since the window is already boarded up. The glass would be sturdy in a window that large; something fairly heavy would have had to hit it to shatter it like that. Is that one of the businesses on the list?"

Will pulled out his list. "Yeah, it's Continental Medical Research. Henry said it's a private medical research facility, he couldn't find out much about it other than it was established a little over three years ago."

"Medical research would be a perfect cover for Cabal activities. Let's start there, all of us. We'll begin with the parking lot where the glass is, just you and me for now."

Helen and Will walked over to an older man with a broom pushing shards of glass toward a pile of glass and litter. Helen checked the pavement, then subtly indicated to Will a dark red splatter of dried blood. He gave her a small nod back.

Helen turned toward the worker. "Hello, it looks like there was an accident."

The man just shrugged, kept sweeping, and said "I guess so."

"What happened?"

The man shrugged again. "I don't know, lady, they just told me to come out and sweep up the glass, so I'm out here sweeping up the glass."

"Was someone injured? This looks like blood here."

The man stopped sweeping. "What are you, some kind of reporter or something? You want to know, go inside and ask. Maybe they'll tell you, but they ain't telling me nothing, except to sweep up the glass." He went back to sweeping, and Helen and Will gave up and went back to the rest of the group.

When they got back Will asked Helen quietly "Do you think Tesla went out that window?"

"Possibly, or he may have thrown someone else out. If there was a struggle he would be capable of it. Or it may have nothing whatsoever to do with him, but I have a feeling it does."

"So what's the plan?" asked Kate.

"You, George and Jerry take a walk around the building. Check for other exits and dark colored vans, and call in with what you find out."

Kate said "That's not much of a plan."

"We're not sure it's the right place yet. Go."

Kate beckoned and Jerry followed her, while George started around the other side of the building. They found a back door as well as a large roll down door that Kate quickly opened in spite of the fact that it was locked. Inside were three plain black vans. Checking inside they found one of the vans held a stretcher with titanium webbing restraints.

Kate called Helen and told her what they had found. On Helen's direction, Jerry went out to enter through the back door while Kate and George were to proceed cautiously from the parking garage. Helen and Will headed for the front door.

They walked in and the guard at the desk inside tried to stop them.

"Nikola Tesla. Where is he?" Helen demanded.

"Ma'am you can't come in here, this is a private facility."

"Somewhere in here is a woman- I don't know her name- who kidnapped and killed my daughter, and is now holding my friend. I'm going to find her, and I advise you to stay out of my way."

Will gave the surprised guard a "What can you do?" look. The guard started to call someone on a walkie-talkie; Helen suddenly had a gun in her hand and hit the guard in the head with it. He dropped, unconscious, but Will knew they wouldn't have much time before other guards showed up.

He and Helen quickly got out of the lobby and ran down a hall, checking through the rooms on the first floor, surprising a few people going about their jobs but not finding Nikola. In one room they found a steel table with a lot of titanium straps, and lighting and cameras aimed at the table. Helen exchanged a grim look with Will, and they moved back out into the hall.

Another guard called out "Halt!" from behind them. When they spun around with their guns drawn, they saw he hadn't gotten his gun out of his holster yet. He was young, and he wasn't going to get old if he pulled dumb stunts like that.

The guard swallowed nervously, put his hands up, and then dived sideways out of sight. They let him go, they weren't after the employees. They continued down the hall and met up with Kate and George at the far end.

"Anything?" demanded Helen.

"Just a couple of real surprised techs that managed to get out of our way" replied Kate.

"There's nothing down here except offices and exam rooms. Up; you and George take the second floor, Will and I will do the third."

Alarms started to sound as the four of them charged up the stairs. At the second floor, two people started shooting at them from down the hall. Kate yelled "Got it" and she and George returned fire while Will and Helen went on to the third floor.

They moved cautiously down a dim hallway, checking each room. Two guards suddenly fired at them from a recessed doorway. Will flattened against the wall and Helen hit the ground, both shooting back. Another exchange and both guards went down, and Will and Helen moved to the recessed doorway.

Will flung open the door and Helen moved through and to the side so Will could follow her. There was a large tank of some kind in the room, and a young man at a computer. He put his hands up when they came in.

"Where's Nikola Tesla?" Helen growled.

"I . . . you're Helen Magnus?"

"I am, but that's not what I asked; where is he?" Helen was losing patience and making it obvious.

The man at the computer started sweating. "He isn't here. I don't know where he is."

"But he was here. That window, did he do that?"

"Yes, okay, he jumped through it yesterday. But he deserved a lot more than we had time to do to him. He and John Druitt murdered my father."

"And someone here murdered my daughter and five others, and attacked the Sanctuary network and killed dozens of good people first. You're Cabal?"

"No, the Cabal is dead."

"As it should be. Will?"

Will grabbed him and shoved him into a chair that had wrist and ankle restraints, pulling each restraint tight; if he was uncomfortable, too bad.

"Drop your guns" said a female voice from the doorway.

Will crouched and spun the chair in front of him; Helen dived behind the tank, as a middle-aged woman and a guard opened fire. They fired back and the guard fell. The woman grabbed the downed guard's more powerful weapon and dived behind a counter.

She said "Sorry Scott" and used the guard's weapon to try to shoot Will through the chair. She fired wildly, hitting and killing the young man in it, but she almost succeeded. A bullet passed through the chair and whizzed past Will's ear. He ducked and threw himself next to Helen behind the tank.

Helen recognized her voice. "You're the woman who killed my daughter. Who are you?" she called angrily, hoping for information that would lead to any other surviving Cabal members.

"So you recognize my voice? Then you know who I am."

"No," Helen said quietly, "I only know what you are. Will? On three."

Helen went one way around the tank and Will went the other; at three seconds they both burst out firing, catching Doctor Susan Petrocelli in a crossfire that knocked her back into a wall. She slid down, her eyes open, red spreading on her lab coat over her heart. Helen approached cautiously, but Suzy was dead.

The gunfire had ceased from downstairs too. Jerry showed up in the doorway and said "Kate and George are okay, but the two people who were shooting at them disappeared. I tied up the guards downstairs. Is everything okay up here?"

Will replied "Yeah, but we haven't checked the rooms across the hall yet."

Jerry said "Right" and went to take care of that.

Helen just stood looking down at the dead woman at her feet. She would never know who she had been, but Helen had in some small measure avenged Ashley. She didn't find it very satisfying; a great number of Cabal members were dead, but nothing would bring Ashley back, or all the other people they had killed. Still, this woman would never hurt anyone else again.

The rooms across the hall were living quarters, now empty. A search of the facility turned up a lot of data on Nikola, which Helen downloaded from the computer system. She might have to medically undo whatever they had done to him, and the records might prove crucial.

They wiped the hard drives and destroyed the computers and burned any papers relating to Nikola in wastebaskets. Helen wanted nothing left behind that anyone could use against him. The five of them made short work of it, but by the time they left they could hear sirens in the distance. Likely someone from the building had escaped to a neighboring building and called the police. The Sanctuary teams sprinted for their two nondescript gray rental cars, piled in and drove sedately away.

Helen sent Will home; she didn't like to have both of them gone for very long, especially since Declan was on vacation. Kate had other duties too, but she kept George and Jerry for two more days. She rented a third car, and they drove around different segments of the city, trying to spot Nikola. It was a long shot, and it failed.

Helen kept wondering why Nikola didn't call. He was free, so he should have called, even collect if necessary. There was something very wrong. Was he hurt? As a vampire he should have been able to heal any physical injury, but a mental one . . . had that woman completed doing to him what she had done to Ashley? The young man had implied that she hadn't finished with Nikola, but that meant his mental state would be highly unpredictable. All Helen could do was worry and wait. And she hated the thought, but she needed to recharge the gun Nikola had made to kill the Cabal vampires.

A/N: Thank you to Insufferablyteslen, Saphyr88, Lorienleaf, and Tiem625 for your reviews. And a special thanks to Lorienleaf for "Angelina".

Sorry this chapter took so long, I found writing Nikola in a different mental state difficult and had to do a lot of re-writes.


	8. Chapter 8 Odyssey

Helen's search of the downloaded Continental Medical Research database told her two things of interest. First, while Doctor Petrocelli detailed her treatments of Nikola, she never identified three of the main chemical formulas she used on him, calling them simply Serums 1, 2, and 3. She listed amounts used and results, and tweaks to the formulas, but she apparently was so familiar with them she had no need to write them down. That meant anything Helen devised to counter their effects would be purely guess-work. She could only hope that as the drugs wore off, Nikola would return and be his old self without her intervention.

The second thing Helen discovered was the names and personnel data of the woman's associates. Bobby and Molly Allen, brother and sister Illyuatts, were undoubtedly the two people who had fired at them on the second floor and subsequently escaped. Helen couldn't do anything about them except put out an alert to all Sanctuary personnel.

The data on Jenna made it clear she had been used and had no idea of the purpose or intent of the Petrocelli organization. Helen annotated Jenna's file with a need for security training and a broader level of knowledge about threats to the Sanctuary. Henry usually ran a class twice a year for newcomers, and one should be coming up soon.

Or perhaps not quite so soon. Helen was willing to let some of his extra duties slide for a while. As beautiful and sweet as baby Angelina could be, she just did not want to sleep through the night yet.

The name in the database that disturbed Helen the most was Querina. Reena had been rescued, taken in and given a home, and in return she had actively and knowingly betrayed them to Petrocelli. Helen didn't understand that, and wanted to know why.

She called Will in to her office and showed him the file on Reena. He was as surprised as she had been. Helen and Will went to Reena's quarters, but the Brieman was nowhere to be found and a most of her personal possessions were gone as well. But there was an envelope on the bed with "Helen Magnus" written on it. Helen opened it and read:

_By now you know the truth. I have been an agent in the fight against you. You act as if you are the queen of the Abnormals and you are hardly even one of us. You imprison us to protect weak humans; the strong should live and prosper, not the weak. Humans are overrunning the planet and damaging it. They need to be culled and taught to serve us, the strong. In the end, Helen Magnus, we will win and you will be destroyed along with the thoughtless destructive sheep you protect._

Helen passed it to Will. "Put out an all-Sanctuary alert on her as well; I already sent one out on the Allens. And try to explain it to Jenna, please. I've listed her for training, but she needs to understand how she was used and what she contributed to."

Will finished reading the note and shook his head. "I don't get people like Reena. Why would anyone want all-out war between humans and Abnormals? I'll tell Jenna, but I'm not going to be able to explain it very well when I don't understand it myself."

"As long as she understands the threat so she can guard against it."

"That I can do. What about you? How are you doing?"

"I'm fine; really. I'll have Biggie clean out this room."

They left Reena's room and started walking back toward their offices. Will didn't believe Helen was fine. Nothing was likely to happen on the Tesla situation for a while; it was time to open what he was sure was a festering wound.

"I saw the anti-vampire gun charging in the armory."

"Nikola will show up here eventually; we may need it."

"When he shows up, if he's violent, could you use it?"

Helen stopped walking. "I don't know Will. It would be a last resort of course. I would try everything else in my power first."

"Maybe you should let me handle the gun."

Helen immediately shook her head. "If anyone has to do it, I will."

Will hated saying this, but it needed to be said. "Like you did against Ashley?"

"Yes, exactly like Ashley. I have to be the one to make the decision Will, no one else. If anyone else used that gun on Nikola, I would hate them for it."

"If you can't pull the trigger, and he kills you, where does that leave the rest of us? He could kill us all, and without that gun we couldn't stop him."

"When the time comes, if it comes, I'll keep that in mind."

Will replied angrily "That's not good enough. Maybe Reena had a point about you acting like the queen. I don't want to die because you have to be in control all the time. When Tesla shows up you're going to be in an emotionally compromised state, and you're going to be holding the only weapon that we know to be effective against him."

"Will, that's not true, I'm almost sure. Nothing in the data we retrieved indicates Nikola was physically changed at all. Likely any gun will work on him; the vampire gun is just a precaution."

"There's no way for any of us to be sure. He's been in the same hands that turned Ashley into a killing machine. And he's nothing like Ashley; she loved you, and we were family to her. He doesn't even like anyone but you; he'd kill me or Henry, or even Angelina in a heartbeat and never look back."

"He won't harm me Will, no matter what they did to him, and Nikola has never been a violent man. You know he escaped before they finished their process; chances are he's just confused."

Will looked at her in disbelief. "You don't really believe that; if you did you wouldn't be charging the gun. This is real life, not a fairy tale; everybody doesn't always live happily ever after. They had him for weeks, longer than they had Ashley. They pumped drugs into him; you have absolutely no way of predicting if there's any part left of him that's still Nikola Tesla or whether or not he's violent."

"Neither do you Will. I know Nikola to his core. He escaped them, there's some part of him at least that's still Nikola, and when he comes here we're going to help him."

Will threw up his hands. "And if you're wrong, we all die? You can be wrong you know, you're not . . ."

"Enough! When Nikola comes, I will meet him with the gun. He built it, he'll recognize it, and I will not have to use it. If necessary I will use an ordinary gun to stop him, as I have before. And I won't hear another word on the subject." Helen turned and strode away.

Will watched her leave. He had just made a big mistake. By insisting Tesla would be dangerous and might have to be killed, he had pushed her into taking the opposite position. If there had been any chance before that she would use the gun, there wasn't much now. He would have to drop the subject for a couple of days and try again later when Helen had cooled off. Or find a way to get control of the gun himself. She couldn't handle the big heavy vampire gun and a regular gun at the same time, her plan was just impossible.

/

Nick was glad he had finally made it out of the suburbs and into the country. There were animals he could feed from and a lot fewer people. True, he was progressing very slowly by walking down back roads, but there wasn't any rush, was there?

He saw a farmhouse ahead, not too far back from the road. And there were chickens in the yard. He loved chickens. As a boy he used to hug and pet the ones on his family's farm, especially the rooster. He remembered the rooster, it had liked him.

He hopped over the ditch along the side of the road and walked up to the rail fence around the yard, and leaned on it, watching the chickens going about their business. He hoped one would come over to the fence, but none did. After a few minutes an old man opened the door of the house and came out on the porch, and watched him watching the chickens.

"You there, what are you doing?" the old man called to him.

"I'm just looking at the chickens. I like chickens. You have a really pretty rooster."

"Move along, buster. That's my rooster and my chickens, and if I find you in my yard you'll regret it."

Nick stepped back from the fence and shrugged. He hopped back over the ditch and started walking down the road again. The man didn't have to be so mean, Nick wasn't going to hurt his chickens.

He found a long stick near the road and picked it up. He hit weeds with it as he walked along, and occasionally a loose stone. He thought about the farm, and the chickens. And then he remembered the gander that had attacked him as a boy. He and that big bird had never gotten along, but he had still admired the graceful way it swam with two lady geese, and their precise flying formation.

He walked past another farm. There was a big orange cat sitting on the porch steps and he stopped to look at it. He remembered his family cat, Macak. He and Macak had been best friends, rolling around in the grass, and play fighting. Macak would grab his pants and pretend to bite, but never hurt him.

It was a good day. Memories of animals from his childhood weren't very useful, but at least he remembered something. It made him hope that all his memories were still in his head, and eventually they would come back to him.

It was late afternoon when a yellow bus came down the road, and stopped by some mailboxes. Two boys about ten years old got off, and the bus went on its way. One boy grabbed the mail from a box and sprinted across the road and up a long dirt drive. The other walked toward Nick.

Nick realized he hadn't eaten yet today. The sight of the lone child made his hunger surge. The other boy was gone; the two of them were alone on the road walking toward each other. Nick passed the drive to a house set back in the trees. The boy was going to walk right to him.

_No I'm not, no I'm not_ was all he could think. He looked away from the boy, focusing his eyes on some distant trees. The boy said "Hi" as he drew level with Nick, but Nick didn't dare answer. He had to look at the trees, not at the boy, and just pretend he was alone on the road.

Nick was a step or two past and thought he was safe when he heard the boy behind him mutter "Prick". In sudden anger Nick's fangs budded, his step faltered, and he stopped but he didn't turn. He took a deep breath and walked on, shaking his head once to fully retract his fangs. That stupid boy would never know how close he had come to not making it home.

Nick broke into a trot. Farther away was better, much better. And he should eat as soon as possible. He had wanted to be out in the country because there were animals besides humans to feed on, and he'd gotten so involved in remembering his childhood, he hadn't eaten. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

He found cows before he found any other animal. Not surprising, there were a lot of both dairy and beef cattle in the area, but he didn't like cow blood. That didn't matter, he had to eat before he hurt someone. He eased himself into a small herd of dairy cows out of sight of any houses and drank deeply. It lessened his hunger, but not the craving he felt for human blood.

He moved on quickly. Maybe wandering slowly through the countryside wasn't such a great idea after all. But a city would be worse. And if he was riding in a car next to someone, how would he stop himself if the urge to feed came on him?

The thought that he didn't have to stop himself came into his mind, but he pushed it aside. But people were mean, that boy had been mean, why shouldn't he drink their blood if he wanted to? He didn't know the answer to that, and not knowing scared him. It was just a feeling he had that he shouldn't attack people, but if there wasn't any reason not to, then maybe he should just ignore the feeling and do what his body was telling him to do.

He could imagine his razor sharp claws slicing through weak human flesh, his teeth buried in a neck, warm wonderful tasting blood flooding his mouth. Wasn't that what he was supposed to do? Isn't that why he had claws and fangs? He didn't know the answer to that, either.

He stopped walking. This wasn't working; he did need to get to that big old building, that Sanctuary place, as soon as he could. Perhaps Helen could help him, or at least tell him what he was supposed to do, what he was supposed to be. Or maybe she would be mean, like Suzy. There was only one way to find out.

Going there on a plane would be the fastest, but he didn't remember anything about how to get on one, especially without money. And he winced away from the thought of jumping on a train. So he would have to get a car, by himself, with no other people.

That decided, he started walking again, but now he was checking up the driveways looking for a car. The first was empty, the second had a battered old truck and a boat on a trailer. But people would see him trying to take a car from in front of a house, and he wasn't sure how to open or start one without a key, so he would be slow at it. He had fed, but even so, if there was a fight . . .

He jogged down the little road until it intersected with a larger road, and he turned north and kept going. He saw a sign for a town seven miles ahead, and picked up his pace. It was early evening by the time he reached the town, and it was mostly closed. The gas station was open, but there was just one car leaving as he arrived.

The only place where there were very many cars was near a bar. Maybe he could take one without being seen. He walked down the street past the line of cars, and finally decided on a recent model sedan that looked comfortable.

There was no one nearby. He put his hand on the door near the lock, but nothing happened. That wasn't right, he should be able to open the lock, and he should be able to start the car too, if he could only remember how he used to do things like that.

"Hey you! What are you doing there? That's my car." Nick turned to see a short, fat, bearded man barreling toward him. He just waited, it was too late now to get a car without anyone noticing. Taking the car would be a lot easier with the keys, but he would have to control himself.

There were a couple of people by the tavern door, but no one close except the oncoming car owner. Nick changed himself as the fat man puffed to a halt in front of him and then Nick hooked his claws through the man's shirt front and pulled him close to his bared fangs.

"Give me the keys right now, or I'll kill you" Nick said softly. The man just made a gurgling sound, his eyes bulging, and reached into his pocket and took out a key ring. Nick took it and said "Stand there, don't move and don't make a sound until I'm gone. If you do as you're told you'll lose your car for a day; if you make this difficult, you'll lose your life."

The man stood frozen as Nick unlocked the car and got in. Nick changed again; handling the keys was easier without claws. He started the car, looked once at the man who was still standing very still, shifted into gear and drove away. So he did know how to drive, how nice.

Behind him he heard yelling, but he ran a stop sign and turned on to a larger road heading north, and floored it. Someone would probably come after him, but his reflexes were better than human, they would have a hard time catching him and end up being very sorry if they did.

He roared along at the car's top speed, and noted he had three quarters of a tank of gas. It didn't take too long to find an east-west highway, and he turned left and slowed down. He came up on some traffic, slowed more and settled in to the group of vehicles and drove along with them.

As it got darker, he looked for the headlight controls but the lights came on automatically. Nick started trying to figure out how to make the electric windows go up and down without touching the controls. He knew he could do it, and eventually he did.

It was early morning when he pulled into a gas station and parked by a pump. He unlocked the door electronically before touching it, got out and looked around. A young woman finished filling her car, and went inside to pay. Nick strolled over, found the car unlocked and got in. It took only a moment for him to figure out the ignition, and he pulled away sedately in her cute little compact.

He knew he wouldn't be able to get away with taking cars for very long. The woman would call the police, and they would look for him on this road. He turned off on the next north-south road he came to and went north again. He passed a half dozen cross streets, then turned back to the west. Unless they chased him with a helicopter or he drove right past a police car, he was going to use the whole tank of gas even if he had to take back roads again. It would take him a long way and was still much faster than walking.

It was late afternoon when the car started running low on gas. He was tired anyway, and hungry again too. He drove into a small town, and parked the car in a little lot with some other cars, and got out.

He could see some mountains ahead, and he thought he should recognize them, but he didn't remember what they were called. His instinct was to keep going west, and a little north, so the names of the places along the way didn't matter. There were empty buildings in the town. He walked around until he found a house with a "for sale" sign out front. He peered in the back windows and saw no furniture, so he magnetically unlocked the back door and went in.

He was pleased to find the utilities on. He showered and drank some water, then lay down on a carpeted bedroom floor and went to sleep.

When he awoke, it was dark out. He let himself out the back door and locked it after himself. It wasn't hard to find the local bar; it was where all the cars were parked. But what he wanted was the bank. Having money would make traveling much simpler, and the bank was where the money was kept.

He found it a couple of blocks away. The street around the bank was deserted and he had no trouble opening the front door. He was getting good at using electricity and magnetism; it made him mad that Suzy had taken those abilities away from him for so long. He changed himself so he could see better and he wouldn't have to turn on a light.

Getting into the vault was easy. He overloaded the alarm system; it might have sent out one signal, he wasn't sure, so he counted out money quickly; thirty each of 100's, 50's, and 20's. That was enough. He closed the vault and picked up a blank deposit slip and carefully folded it and put it in his pocket, so he had the name and address of the bank. He'd repay the money anonymously as soon as he could. Nick relocked the outer door as he left, and changed himself back.

He strolled over toward the bar, picked out an ordinary-looking gray car, and drove away in it. He drove until he hit a larger town with a W-Mart, and parked in the lot. It was open 24 hours, so he went in and shopped. Nick bought some personal care products, some nicer clothes, and a large duffle to carry everything in. Of course they didn't carry suits but he was able to get slacks and shirts and grown-up shoes at least.

He also found out where the nearest airport was. He couldn't get away with stealing cars forever; sooner or later the police would see he was in a stolen car and try to stop him. He could take wild chances in a car chase and survive a car wreck, but humans attempting to keep up might be killed. The worst thing that would happen is that they would actually catch him. Face to face with a policeman or two trying to arrest him . . . if they grabbed him he would fight and feed on them, and he couldn't be sure they would survive it.

He went back to "his" car, got in and drove to the local airport out in the middle of a big field. He parked in long-term parking; someone would find the car eventually, but it would take a while. If anyone was after him, he would be long gone by then.

It was a small airport, only two little airlines used it, but he was able to get a ticket to take him where he thought he should go. The difficult part was his lack of identification. He told the agent his wallet had been stolen, but he had packed money in his suitcase and he was just trying to get home. The false information he gave didn't raise any red flags, so eventually the agent sold him a ticket in the name of Nick Williams. Nick wished he knew his real last name, but for now Williams would do.

He wasn't sure if he picked the right city to fly to, but it was on the west coast and north, so it would be at least close. He had to wait six hours for the flight, so he bought some books and read to pass the time. The hard part was going to be ignoring all the fresh human blood around him during the flight.

For Nick, the only important thing was that he was able to fly First Class and sip wine the whole time. It tasted good, and it took the edge off of his hunger. Fortunately half the seats were empty so there was no one seated next to him. He stuck his nose in a book; he could still hear and smell the other people, but not looking at anyone else helped his control. The steward probably thought he was weird, ordering wine without ever looking at him, but Nick didn't care.

When they landed, Nick took his bag and exited the large city airport as fast as he could without drawing attention to himself. He couldn't rent a car without a driver's license, so he took a taxicab. He was running low on cash, but it didn't matter, he had enough for the taxi ride. He recognized the city, and he knew he was almost there. But the thirty minute ride ended with the cab pulling up in front of an empty lot.

"Sorry, the address you gave me would be here" the cabbie said. "Are you sure you gave me the right address?"

Nick looked around. The view across the river was as he remembered it, as well as the other buildings in the area. But where was the big old building he remembered? He just said "This will do", paid the cabbie, took his bag and got out.

He walked around the big lot. There were deep tread marks from heavy equipment and blocks of stone embedded in the ground in one area, some of them showing scorch marks. This was the right place, but the building was gone; the only thing he had remembered from his adult life wasn't there anymore.

Nick felt lost; he didn't know what to do. He wandered around the lot, remembering what part of the building had been where, but found the memories only increased his distress. What had happened, and why couldn't he remember it? Maybe he hadn't been here when the building had been destroyed. But where had all the people gone, and how was he going to find them?

He walked over to the river and sat slumped on a large roughly cubical block of stone and just stared out at the moving water and the city on the other side. He had no other place to go. But he was hungry, and would need to find food soon, or he would lose control. But what did it matter, he was in a city and there was only one animal he could feed on here anyway. He tossed pebbles into the water while he tried to remember the city; he needed to figure out where he could go to feed.

In the Security Center at the Sanctuary, Henry got a beep from one of the sensors set up at the old Sanctuary building site. Helen had expected that some Abnormals would go there looking for the old Sanctuary, not knowing where the new one was, and she had gotten Henry to set up sensors and cameras in the area. Henry turned on the cameras, expecting it was just kids playing in the empty lot again. It wasn't.

"It's him! It's Nikola, the Doc is going to go nuts." Henry grinned and grabbed his phone to called Helen.

"Doc, Nikola's back! No, not here, there. I mean at the old Sanctuary, I have him on camera."

"Is he all right?" Helen asked, "How does he look?"

"Uh, underdressed, but okay I guess."

"What is he doing?"

"Just hanging around; looks like he forgot we moved."

"Right. Have Will meet me at the Sphere, we'll go collect him."

Will was angry at himself as he raced to meet Magnus; he hadn't followed up on his talk with her, and now it was too late. So he was surprised when she met him lugging the vampire gun, and handed it to him.

"You were right, Will. I could never use this on Nikola. But we should have it as a precaution, although I don't expect you to use it either, is that clear?"

Will nodded, relieved that she was being sensible. "Only as a last resort, I promise."

They got in a sphere and rode a long distance to an entry to the surface across the street from the now empty lot. The Sanctuary had purchased the building there and converted it to apartments for short term housing for Sanctuary agents, and to use it as a convenient location for an entrance to the underground world of the new Sanctuary. It made it easy to bring lost Abnormals from the old location to the new Sanctuary.

It was a tension-filled ride, but once they arrived they had only to trot up some stairs to the entrance hidden in the basement of the apartment building, then up to the outer door. Helen crossed the street with Will right behind her to the empty lot. At first she didn't see Nikola, but then she spotted him sitting down by the river.

Helen smiled and called "Nikola! Over here."

He didn't respond at first, but when she called again, he turned his head and stood up. Helen and Will walked quickly across the lot, but Nick just stayed where he was. When they drew close, they slowed and then stopped a few feet from him, sensing something was wrong.

Will held the vampire gun ready as Helen took a few steps closer.

"Nikola? Is everything all right?"

"It's Nick, actually. Do I know you?" She looked like the woman with the different colored hair he had remembered, but he wasn't sure if it was really her or not.

Helen's face fell. "Of course you do. Helen Magnus; we've known each other a very long time."

Nick backed up a step. This was the woman Suzy had warned him about, the one he had come to find. He gestured at Will. "Why is he pointing that thing at me?"

"It's just a precaution. We mean you no harm, we want to help you; we're your friends."

That set off alarm bells for Nick; Suzy had kept saying she wanted to be his friend too. But that's not what she had really wanted at all. "Are you friends with Suzy?"

Helen looked at Will, confused, and he shook his head back. "I don't think we know Suzy, who is she?"

Nick knew that was a lie. Suzy knew them, they must know Suzy too, but why lie about it? Nick dropped his duffle bag to free both his hands and changed. "If you're my friends, then tell me my name" he said warily. Maybe he could find out something useful from them, even if they might mean him harm.

Helen was getting more and more worried. Something was definitely wrong with Nikola, and she had to find a way to convince him to trust them. She said "Your name is Nikola Tesla. You're Serbian, and a naturalized American citizen. Is any of that familiar?"

It was, at least a little. Nick thought he had heard of Nikola Tesla, but he was just some old-time inventor who must have been dead for decades. Helen was telling another lie; why did she keep lying to him? Nick shook his head. "You're lying to me. I may not remember very much, but I'm not stupid." He started walking forward. "You and Suzy may hate each other, but you're not my friends; friends wouldn't lie to me."

Helen reached behind her and pulled out a large caliber pistol. "Stop right there. I don't want to hurt you Nikola, but I won't let you hurt us either. I'm not lying, please let us help you."

Nick turned toward Will, snarling. "Liar! That gun is meant to kill me."

Will said "That's right, it is; so stay where you are, don't come any closer. I don't want to use it, don't force me to."

But Nick was still advancing.

Helen tried one more time. "Nikola . . . Nick, please, we want to help you. Try to remember who we are."

"I know everything I need to know about you. And I'm hungry." Nick moved faster than any human could, launching himself at Will and the threatening gun. Will pulled the trigger.

The vampire gun didn't fire, but Helen did, shooting Nikola in mid-air from the side under his raised arm, into his chest. The force of the bullet knocked him sideways and he fell to the ground next to Will. Helen quickly walked forward as Nikola was trying to rise, and deliberately put a bullet into his head.

A/N: Thank you AnthropologistGirlInTheMaking for you review. But you know Nikola isn't out of trouble yet, even now that he's gotten back to Helen.


	9. Chapter 9 Restart

Will looked down at Tesla lying unmoving next to him amid splattered blood, bone fragments and brain matter, and then at the vampire gun he held. He turned to Magnus and said accusingly, "It didn't fire. You knew it wouldn't."

Helen put away her big pistol and bent over Nikola. "Of course not, I discharged it before I gave it to you."

"You gave me an empty gun? I could have been killed!"

"Only if I missed, and I never miss." She stood up, turned back to the apartment building across the street and raised her hand and waved. Two large men came out of the building carrying something. It wasn't until they were close that Will saw it was George and Biggie carrying a stretcher. Biggie was in disguise, wearing a hoodie up over his head and gloves.

They loaded Nikola on to the stretcher, and strapped him down. Helen said "Infirmary, and I'll need X-rays of his chest, front and side views."

Biggie said "And then prep for surgery?"

"Yes, I'll need to remove the bullet; he doesn't heal very quickly without his mind to guide it. Fortunately the bullet to the head went through; messy, but nothing to interfere with his natural processes."

Biggie and George easily carried the stretcher at a fast walk, with Helen and Will following.

Will decided to let the argument about the gun slide; Magnus had her attention focused on Tesla now. He asked "You blew his brains out; he's going to recover from that?"

"Yes, but it's a slow process. The physical healing should happen within a few hours, but there are over 150 years of neural connections to be rebuilt, and that takes time."

They all went down to the apartment house basement, through a hidden door to another long stairway down and into a waiting Sphere. At the Sanctuary, Will went to put the vampire gun away in the armory while Helen followed the stretcher.

George left them after getting Nikola on a table. Biggie stripped him and used the portable X-ray machine to get the pictures Helen needed while she changed into scrubs. Germs weren't an issue with Nikola, but as a doctor, dressing properly for the procedure was an ingrained habit, and she didn't want to get blood or other fluids on her clothes.

In a few minutes the dead-appearing vampire was on the operating table and the X-rays available for viewing.

The bullet had passed through the heart and was lodged just past the sternum. The outer wound under his left arm had already scabbed over, but his heart wasn't beating yet which was good, it would make the surgery much easier.

Helen quickly made an incision in his chest, cut through a rib, probed for the bullet and then fished it out with forceps. She would have had to be much more careful with a human patient, but with Nikola speed was more important than collateral damage. She removed it with a satisfied smile and dropped it with a "clunk" in a small metal pan for disposal.

She taped a sterile gauze pad over the incision, knowing it would heal on its own without any further action on her part. She checked the head wounds. There was a bone shard protruding from the entry wound that she removed. The exit wound was large and ugly, but didn't appear to have any foreign material embedded in it. The edges of the head wounds were already showing signs of bone growth. She slapped sterile pads over both holes and did a couple of wraps around his head to hold them in place. The pads would keep foreign matter out of the wounds and lessen irritation from casual contact.

"Easiest surgery ever" Helen said, as she stripped off her gloves.

Biggie had been standing by in case she needed him; he occasionally acted as an anesthesiologist or surgical nurse for her. "How long can he stay like that?" he asked, looking quizzically at Tesla, still apparently dead.

"Several hours, but eventually his cells will need oxygen. I expect his circulatory system to rebuild in less than two hours. If he hasn't started breathing by then, we'll use a heart-lung machine."

Biggie just grunted agreement, and put a gown on Tesla. But then he wasn't sure what to do with him.

"Where do you want him?"

_Good question_ thought Helen. Considering how confused Nikola had been at the old Sanctuary lot, he could be dangerous; he certainly didn't trust Helen or Will, and he might hurt someone or even himself if he tried to escape. On the other hand, until his brain completely rebuilt and reconnected, he wasn't likely to even remember any of what had happened to him recently for a long time. But, on the third hand, he was a vampire, and he hadn't been taking his medication. Even with his medication, he might act mindlessly on instinct and end up attacking someone.

Helen hated to have to do it, but safe was better than sorry. "Put him in the detention chamber, and strap him down." Biggie nodded, moved Tesla to a gurney, and trundled him away.

Helen went and changed into casual clothes. She was going to have to monitor Nikola for the next few hours, and she might as well be comfortable.

She winced when she went into the detention chamber and saw him restrained. Even though she knew it was necessary, it was painful to see the man she loved strapped down even more extensively than Adam Worth had been in the old Sanctuary.

Adam had just had his wrists restrained; physically he wasn't powerful and hadn't needed more. Nikola had straps over a light blanket across his ankles, thighs, and chest, as well as being attached to the bed rails by his wrists and forearms. The straps were all titanium, as well as the bed frame.

The straps wouldn't be uncomfortable as long as he didn't struggle, but he wouldn't be able to move very much and the whole rig reminded her painfully of that steel table in Doctor Petrocelli's lab. There weren't spotlights on Nikola and the bed was softer, but there were cameras and he was a prisoner, at least for now.

Helen pulled up a chair and sat down next to the bed. She didn't expect him to wake, but she needed to make periodic checks on his injuries _which I inflicted_ she thought guiltily. She knew she had done what was necessary, and both of them were always very cavalier about her shooting him, but a head shot was serious.

A movement caught her eye; Henry was on the other side of the plexiluminum walls that enclosed three sides of the chamber; prisoners didn't get privacy. He pointed at the door with a questioning look on his face, and she waved at him to come in.

"Hi" he said, peering at Nikola. "I was watching on camera, I saw you shoot him in the head. Is he going to be okay?"

"The head wound will heal, but I don't know if he'll be okay yet."

Henry nodded. "Will said he was . . . um, not himself."

"His memory was all but nonexistent, he didn't know us, or even recognize his own name. Above all, he didn't trust us Henry; he thought we were his enemies." She gestured at the bound figure on the bed. "And when he wakes up like this that will only confirm that belief, if he remembers anything at all."

"So he's our enemy now? That's not right Doc, there has to be something we can do."

"I've already done what I could."

"You shot him in the head. How is that supposed to help?"

"The medical records we retrieved were incomplete. Without the missing data, I can't treat him chemically to try to undo the damage. So I re-booted him."

"You mean like a computer? Will that work? He's a vampire, not a machine."

"A vampire is the only being I could try this on. I shot him in the head once before, and his mind, his memories rebuilt themselves over a period of months. If this follows that pattern, then he should gradually become the Nikola we know again, up to the point of his capture. Without a repeat of the flood of chemicals that woman injected into him, he should remember the experience but not relive it. Hopefully it will bring him back the way he was before she changed him. It was the only thing I could think of to do."

"Oh, man. That sounds weird. When he wakes up is he going to be or all jumbled up, or crazy, or like a kid, or what?"

"Possibly any and all of those. Most likely his mind will be at a very simple level to start, and add complexity over time. We won't know until he wakes up."

Henry said earnestly "Bring him back, okay? Nikola Tesla not being Nikola Tesla, that's just not right. There's nobody like him, he's one of a kind, and I . . . well, I'd miss him if he wasn't around to tell me I'm a half-competent idiot child and show me fascinating stuff."

"I'll do my best, Henry."

"I know. Let me know if I can help, okay?"

"I will. Keep a good thought. Nikola can be quite amazing at times, but don't tell him I said so, it would go right to his head."

"And that's big enough already, although right now . . ." Henry trailed off. "I have some work to do, keep me up to date?" Helen nodded and Henry left.

Helen sat watching Nikola. It was very quiet, just like being alone, with only one person in the room breathing, only one heartbeat. Helen knew he was alive and healing, but it felt like she was sitting next to a corpse.

It was just under 90 minutes when he gasped and jerked in the restraints, then started panting. Helen checked his pulse; it rose to 165, but then began to slow. Gradually his breathing and heartbeat both slowed to normal, and he opened his eyes.

Helen stood over the bed and said "Nikola? Can you understand me?"

He looked at her with pale blue, innocent, empty eyes.

Helen stroked Nikola's hair, projecting love at him. "It's all right Nikola; you're safe, I'll take care of you. Everything will be fine."

Unfortunately, the first thing she needed to do was to give him his medication, and it would have to be an injection since he was in no condition to swallow a pill. She prepared the needle and kept it out of sight as long as she could. She talked soothingly as she brought it up into his view and plunged the needle into his arm, injecting him as quickly as she could.

At the sight of the needle, his eyes went wide, and then he went wild, jerking and straining against his restraints. Helen stepped back, distressed at his reaction. She was sure he had no active memories, but some portion of his brain that wasn't damaged held a revulsion to being injected, very likely the result of Dr. Pertocelli's experiments on him. There just wasn't enough of his mind available to be able to distinguish between what that woman did to him and a simple injection of the medication he needed to help him control his vampire side.

The straps held, and he gradually calmed. Helen approached him and took his hand. He looked at her with eyes that weren't quite empty; there was just a tiny bit of distrust in them now.

And the worst part was that he may not have needed the medication; he hadn't manifested any vampire characteristics during his struggle. Which presented another problem; how was she going to feed him, if he wasn't aware of or using his fangs? The first time she had shot him in the head, she had been able to inject his augmented animal plasma directly into his stomach until he had become aware enough to use his feeders on a bag of plasma she held for him. But now another injection seemed like a very bad idea.

Well, she had pushed him back to a state of babyhood, maybe a baby bottle? Helen prepared a large bottle of warm plasma for him. She loosened his chest band and pushed the button that raised the head of his bed so he was sitting up at a 45 degree angle, and tried to give him the bottle. He sniffed at it, then clamped his mouth closed and jerked his head away. Helen pursued his mouth with the nipple to no avail, and gave up in exasperation.

He had said he was hungry back at the old Sanctuary lot and had done major healing since then, so he had to be in need of food, why wouldn't he eat? What did he want? Helen feared she knew the answer to that; he had been without his medication or animal plasma for a long time, if he had been drinking human blood . . . well he wasn't going to get that here.

But he wasn't physically a baby, and she knew one way to bribe Nikola Tesla. She went to the wine cellar and picked out a nice Riesling, and mixed it with the animal plasma. When she offered the bottle to him again, he grabbed on to the nipple and sucked eagerly. Helen looked for signs of triumph or satisfaction in his eyes, but there was nothing there, he just seemed happy. The bloody vampire had drunk so much wine over the years, wanting it had become an instinct too. Well, at least he would eat.

After he had eaten, Nikola relaxed and his eyes half closed drowsily. Helen checked his injuries, and found all of them to be closed, although there was still scarring and the bone under the skin of the head wounds was still not completely filled in. He was dozing when she finished her exam and she let him sleep.

He woke again in a little over an hour, and seemed to be more aware of his surroundings and his restraints. Nikola frowned at his inability to move, and tried twisting and wriggling around to get out of the straps. He grew more distressed as he continued to fail. Helen needed some way to distract him.

English wasn't his native language, he had spoken Serbian at home as a boy, but also Croatian since his family had lived in a Croatian area. Unfortunately, Helen's portfolio of languages included very little in the Slavic tongues. She tried the little bit of Serbian she knew.

"Zdravo, Nikola. Kako ste?" _Hello, how are you?_

Her voice attracted his attention, but he looked at her blankly. Too early for language development then, or he was aphasic; so it didn't matter what she said, she just needed to keep his attention and keep him calm. Once he was able to speak again, she would be able to assess whether or not he needed to be restrained; until then he would be unpredictable.

Helen sang "Inchworm" to him, and he seemed to like that, relaxing again and watching her. She put in a call to Henry; she knew he had gone a bit overboard buying things for Angelina before she had been born; she asked him to bring a few of the extras to the infirmary to entertain Nikola.

Henry arrived with an armload of nursery items. They hung up a mobile with brightly colored fish, and put a teddy bear in bed next to Nikola. Nikola had a rather bemused expression on his face that turned to frustration when he couldn't reach out toward the mobile or grasp the teddy bear. Helen quickly wound a music box that played "Mary Had a Little Lamb" to distract him. That worked, but only for a few seconds.

Helen looked at Nikola in frustration, and he looked back the same way. She made a decision, and removed the straps on his forearms, and extended the straps holding his wrists so he could move his hands. She gave him enough range so he could hold something and look at it, but not reach across to the strap holding his other wrist and free himself.

She got what might have been a bit of a smile for that, but Nikola's attention turned to the teddy bear. He held it, examining it in detail, touching its nose and eyes, stroking its soft body. That kept his attention for all of thirty seconds; then he flipped it across the room, obviously bored. But he made no sound.

Henry went over and picked up the teddy bear, brushed it off, and held it like it was a living thing that needed reassurance that it was wanted. He looked at Nikola with a frown, at the stuffed animal, and then back at Nikola.

Henry said "I'll be right back" and left. Helen went over and held Nikola's hand, and talked softly to him in English. Last time she had shot him in the head this nonverbal phase hadn't lasted even this long, but she was just beginning to realize that this time was going to be different; very different.

Henry came back with two laptops, and handed one to Helen. He set the other up on a roll-around table close by but out of Nikola's reach. He aimed it toward Nikola and fiddled with it a bit; then an episode of "Sesame Street" came on the screen.

"It'll play episodes continuously until you click here, and then start again when you click there" Henry said, demonstrating. "And once he's busy watching, you can use the other laptop."

Helen looked hopefully at Nikola, and was pleased to see he was fascinated by the computer and was quickly absorbed in the show, watching with his mouth open a little.

Helen smiled and said "Thank you Henry, I think you just saved my sanity." Henry smiled proudly back. He watched Nikola watch the computer for a few minutes, then said "Watching him makes me miss my little Angel. I'm going to go play with my daughter before bedtime, see you tomorrow, Doc."

Helen stayed in the room with Nikola, but with him engrossed in the television show, she was able to use the other laptop and get some work done. He watched until Helen decided it was time for bed. She clicked off the show and closed the laptop, and lowered the bed until it was flat. He fussed, struggling against the restraints again. He usually didn't need a lot of sleep, but in his current condition she wasn't sure how much he needed; he might need quite a lot.

Helen was beginning to worry about Nikola. He hadn't made any attempt to interact with "Sesame Street"; in fact, he had yet to vocalize at all. Even if she had reset him back to infant, babies made sounds as soon as they could breathe, unless there was something wrong.

It might just be that she had damaged that particular portion of his brain. But right now he couldn't take care of himself, and if something happened, if he needed something, he couldn't call out during the night. She needed to stay with him. Helen called Will and let him know where she would be; in a few minutes he showed up with a cot and a snack for her. Nikola had stopped fussing, and just watched her sullenly.

Helen smiled and said "Thank you Will, that's very thoughtful of you."

"You sleep in a chair, you get hungry, you get stiff, you get grumpy, and we all suffer. How's he doing?"

"All right I suppose. He hasn't made any sounds yet which is a bit worrying, but he's aware of his surroundings and watched quite a few episodes of 'Sesame Street'. I fed him, but the only way I could get him to eat was to mix his animal plasma with wine."

"Well that sounds normal at least. Look, I want to talk about that trick you pulled with the vampire gun."

"If we must, but it's over and done with so I see no point to further discussion."

"You weren't sure just shooting him would work; the vampire gun was supposed to be the backup. When you disabled it, you left us wide open to his attack."

"And you weren't supposed to use it except as a last resort, yet you pulled the trigger as soon as he leapt at you. I was right to do what I did, if I hadn't Nikola would be dead now and you might be as well."

"You wouldn't have shot me just for defending myself."

"Honestly, Will, I don't know if I would have or not. But you need to understand that I value Nikola very, very highly."

"More than me."

"More than anyone else on earth. He and I are the last of the Five and I love him dearly, and I will defend him to the death."

Will nodded. He was sure she was telling him the absolute truth, and at least he knew where he stood. "Okay, I get the message. Is there anything else you need tonight, anything I can do to help?"

Helen shook her head. "I appreciate the offer. I wish I could think of something to help him, but I can't think of anything else to do for him, except keep him out of trouble and give him time to heal."

"If you need someone to relieve you, or need anything during the night, just call."

She acknowledged his offer with a nod. "Thank you, Will."

After Will had gone, Helen set up the cot next to Nikola's bed, and turned the lights down to their dimmest setting. Nikola was still watching her as she took off her shoes and settled down on the cot.

"Go to sleep Nikola, or Nick, or whoever you are right now" she said softly, and closed her eyes. After a few minutes, she peeked at him. Nikola was sleeping peacefully.

/

Reena arrived at the Allen's apartment after dark. That was to be expected, given her small stature and odd appearance, traveling at night was her best option. Of course the name on the mailbox in the lobby didn't say "Allen", it said "Bentley", but they had spoken on the phone so she knew their address and their new name.

Molly and Bobby greeted her warmly. The apartment was huge, in a security building, and furnished beautifully and expensively.

Bobby hugged her gently and said "Reena, we're so glad you're safe. We were worried about you traveling so far on your own."

Reena smiled and hugged him and Molly too. "I have some experience, you know, I didn't always live in that hole in the ground."

Molly showed Reena her room, and suggested they talk in the morning, but Reena didn't want to wait so they reconvened in the living room for a short planning session.

Reena began the discussion. "Those Sanctuary people murdered Dr. Petrocelli and Scott as well. We are agreed that they need to pay for that, and for their attacks on the Cabal?"

"Absolutely" said Bobby, and Molly added "Of course."

"What are our resources?"

Molly smiled hugely. "You know that while Scott was the doctor's second in command in the lab, I was her administrator. I have access to her hidden funds, although probably not all of them. Still, she was able to drain several Cabal accounts before they were found, so we have a substantial sum of money to work with; about two million US dollars."

Reena's eyes gleamed. "Excellent. Bobby and I made a few tweaks to the security set up while we were at the Sanctuary. The entrance to the Sanctuary cave from old Praxis will work perfectly normally until it receives a certain code, and then it will open to us. So we have funds and access; how should we attack?"

"We could blow them up" suggested Bobby. "That would do the maximum damage."

Reena shook her head. "No, we don't want to harm the Abnormals being held in captivity. It will have to be more surgical, aimed directly at the people who have committed the crimes."

"Could we hire a mercenary group?" asked Molly.

"Perhaps. But for justice, it should be Abnormals who kill them, not humans. Do we know of any Abnormal mercenaries?"

Bobby and Molly both shook their heads.

"Then that will be our first move in the morning, to start searching for such groups."

Bobby yawned and said "Okay, I'll start a computer search tomorrow."

Molly added "I have some contacts from working with Dr. Petrocelli, I'll see what I can find out."

"Excellent" Reena said, "Tomorrow we begin working toward justice for all the people that have been murdered by Helen Magnus and her gang of thugs."

A/N: Thank you Saphyr88, Lorienleaf, AnthropoligistGirlInTheMaking, and Minderismeer for your reviews/comments. I really do appreciate knowing there are folks who are enjoying the story.


	10. Chapter 10 Big Little Boy

A/N: Serbian translations are provided at the end of the chapter.

Henry lay awake, listening. He and Erika had agreed to stop going to Angelina every time she cried during the night, hoping that without the reward of their attention she would give up and go back to sleep by herself. And it seemed as if it had worked, but Henry wasn't sure.

Angelina had cried and cried, for at least twenty minutes, and then stopped. When the noise ceased, Henry had felt Erika relax and shift into a more comfortable position next to him, and go back to sleep. But he hadn't been able to do the same. What if something was wrong? What if Angelina had stopped wailing because something had happened and she couldn't cry?

He knew he was likely worrying needlessly, but he couldn't help it. What if his little Angel needed him? He got out of bed as quietly as he could; he would just peek in and make sure the baby was all right, he wouldn't wake her. Henry shuffled across the room, across the hall to the open door of the nursery.

And froze; Angelina wasn't alone, he could hear the regular squeak of the rocking chair, a sound he had made himself many nights trying to get her back to sleep. He moved forward silently, trying to see into the shadowed corner nearly unlit by the night light. He half Happed to bring his superior senses to bear.

He smelled vampire, and there was only one in the building: Nikola, who was not himself and unpredictable. Even when he was himself, Henry wasn't at all sure he would trust him with an infant; he'd probably get involved in something and forget where he left her. Henry de-Happed, but didn't know what to do. There was no point in waking Erika, she and Nikola didn't know each other well and she would only be upset and might make things worse. He had to get the Doc up here, quick.

Henry backed slowly away and went to the computer in the living room and sent an alarm to the laptop he had given Helen. But he couldn't wait for her to arrive; he had to rescue his daughter now.

Henry went back to the nursery and slowed down his movements. He did not want to startle Nikola, although if Nikola was vamped then he was already well aware of Henry. Henry stepped into the nursery.

He said, very softly, "Hi Nikola, how's it going?"

The squeaking stopped.

"That's my daughter, Angelina. She's just a baby, be careful with her, please?"

Henry heard the chair rock without the squeak; Nikola had stood up. Henry took a step to the side so he could reach the little lamp on the dresser and clicked it on. It didn't throw much light but he could see Nikola, wearing a light blanket like a toga, with the precious bundle in his arms. He was in vampire mode, the light glinting off his fangs and his razor sharp claws very close to the baby's tender flesh.

Henry wanted to laugh at the image of Nikola in a makeshift toga, but he was too scared for Angelina. Henry swallowed convulsively. He had to be perfect, do this just right and get his daughter safely away. Nikola had only to move carelessly and he would cut her. And what if he was hungry? Poor Angelina would only be a snack. Henry shuddered at that mental image and pushed the thought away. He had to concentrate.

"Uh, maybe I should hold her for a while." Henry took a step forward; Nikola pulled his lips back from his fangs and Henry froze again. Was Nikola claiming the baby for his own, or defending her from an unknown intruder? Henry hoped it was the latter, but either way, how was he going to get close enough to rescue her? He heard a sound behind him and then the Doc was in the room too.

Helen took in the situation immediately. Henry was strung taut, ready to spring but afraid to move. Nikola had the baby, but didn't understand the situation and had no idea what to do. Helen needed to defuse the situation; she said lightly "Nikola, _das vas upoznam sa_ Angelina; Angelina, meet your Uncle Nikola."

Nikola had ignored Henry's words, but seemed to hear Helen's. He looked down at the infant in his arms who was starting to fuss without the rocking motion, and rocked her a bit. He formed her name with his mouth, but didn't say it.

He looked back at Helen, frowning. Then he said "_Sestru?_"

Helen shook her head. "Henry's _cerku"_ she said, patting Henry's shoulder. To Henry she said "He's a little confused, Angelina was his oldest sister's name."

"Oh. But can we . . ." Henry reached out toward his daughter.

"Of course, I'll get her for you. Don't worry, Henry. Nikola has always loved children, he wouldn't deliberately hurt her." Helen approached the vampire.

Henry muttered "If you say so, except that's not exactly Nikola."

Helen didn't reply, just held out her arms and said "I'll take her now." Nikola understood the gesture she was making, but seemed reluctant to give up Angelina. But then he passed the baby carefully over to her. Helen cuddled her and said _"Hvala_, Nikola." She took the baby to Henry's waiting arms.

Erika appeared in the doorway. "Henry, what is going on? Did you forget to tell me we're having a party in the middle of the night?"

Henry smiled weakly, not knowing how to explain the gathering. Helen stepped in.

"Nikola decided to baby-sit without mentioning it to anyone. It's all straightened out now. Come along, Nikola." She reached out her hand, and he slowly took it. She led him from the room.

The halls were dimly lit in night mode, and Nikola stayed in vampire form until they reached the detention room. He moved and held himself awkwardly, which surprised Helen. In the vampire society, everyone had seemed to be well coordinated, but then she hadn't seen any very young children while she was there.

When he walked into the brighter lighting he devamped without the usual shake of his head. Helen noticed and realized he wasn't in control of his changes. In fact, he might not even be aware he was changing, his body just automatically adjusting to its environment.

"Now, how in the world did you get out of here? I don't suppose you'd like to tell me, would you?" But Nikola just looked at her blankly.

Helen examined the bed. None of the straps were broken, nothing was damaged. Ah, but she had forgotten to retighten the chest strap. That had allowed him to wiggle out of the straps across his lower body. And then he had undone the straps on his wrists with his teeth most likely for the first one and his free hand for the second.

How had he opened the door? It had a number keypad with a four-digit combination needed to open it. Helen wasn't sure whether he had just watched people going out enough to figure out or even see the numbers they were punching, or if he had used his electromagnetic abilities. It didn't matter, either way the room wasn't going to be able to hold him.

Helen realized she wasn't going to be a very effective guard for him either. In the months they had been together, she had gotten used to hearing him coming and going while she was sleeping, and had learned to ignore the sounds. Well, maybe he didn't need a guard; he didn't seem to be dangerous, even if he had scared poor Henry half to death.

She unwrapped the blanket from around him and put it back on the bed. She pointed at it and said _"krevet_". It was the noun form of "bed" rather than the verb form, but her Serbian didn't reach to "Go to bed and go to sleep, you bloody vampire." But he apparently got the message from the tone of her voice and crawled in obediently. Helen noticed he moved even more awkwardly when not in vampire mode.

She hesitated; should she put the straps back on him? He was lying on his side, and looking up at her pleadingly. She gave in and said, "Oh, all right." She pushed her cot up against the door. He wasn't going to get out again, at least not tonight.

Helen woke up to the sounds of "Mary Had a Little Lamb". The fish mobile was swinging wildly, and Nikola was examining the music box closely while it played. It was morning, if very early, so she got up and started "Sesame Street" again. That caught his attention, but he was no longer strapped down and he went over to the computer and touched the screen. Then he started poking at the keys.

He quickly lost the show, but he didn't seem to care. Helen watched him for a little while, but there wasn't any pattern to what he was doing, it was just random curiosity at work. She was going to call Will and ask him to come relieve her for a while, but Biggie showed up with a breakfast tray and a paper bag.

"I hear you had an interesting night" he said when she had moved the cot and let him in.

Helen had pounced on the tea and only said "Hmm" in between sips.

"I'll watch him for a while. We could go outside so he can burn off some of his energy."

Helen nodded. "Good idea" she said between bites of toast. "And then perhaps I can catch up on my work for a bit. You'll be all right with him?"

"Sure, I practically raised Henry, I can handle him." Biggie opened the bag and produced a set of Nikola's W-Mart clothing. He got Nikola out of the hospital gown and into a set of clothes without Nikola paying much attention to the process. But when he closed the laptop and tried to lead Nikola away, Nikola resisted.

"_Ne! Zelim_ . . . ". Nikola reached for the computer, apparently not having a word for it.

"Bribe him" Helen advised. She was pleased Biggie was taking an interest. He had been almost a father to Henry when he was a boy, and she suspected he missed having that sort of relationship now that Henry was grown and a father himself. Interacting with a strong male would be good for Nikola right now, too.

"With what?" Biggie asked. He moved his bulk between Nikola and the computer and started to herd him toward the door, but Nikola moved faster than human and dodged around him, and started fumbling at the laptop, trying to open it.

"Nikola," Helen said, "There are pigeons on the roof. _Vtacik_, Nikola."

That got Nikola's attention. Helen pointed at Biggie. "Go with Biggie to the _vtacik_." Nikola looked warily at Biggie, who nodded and beckoned him. Nikola gave up the laptop and followed Biggie to the door.

"Bring him back before dinnertime" Helen said. Biggie paused and looked back at her in surprise. He hadn't expected to be a vampire nanny all day, but if that's what Helen needed he would do it. "Ahhh, uhhh, okay" he responded, resigned, but didn't look happy about it.

Nikola followed Biggie through the Sanctuary, and finally up the stairs to the roof. As soon as he saw the pigeons, he ran forward, but the pigeons moved away, startled. Nikola slowed down and went purposefully to the large containers of seed, took some out and scattered it for them, but kept some in his hands. The pigeons were soon perched on him, and all around him.

Biggie just stood back and watched. He shook his head a little and said "That's what you remember, how to feed pigeons? Out of everything that might be useful, you know how to find the pigeon food." Nikola ignored him, he was engrossed in feeding the birds.

When Nikola finished and came back to him smiling openly, Biggie had to admit, maybe it wasn't the worst thing he could have remembered. But seeing Nikola Tesla with a simple, innocent smile on his face seemed very odd. Biggie led him back down the stairs, through the halls, and outside.

Helen spent a productive day; it was after four in the afternoon when she heard something in the hallway that alarmed her. Two sets of footsteps approaching, squelching and sloshing as they came. There were no Abnormals in the Sanctuary that sounded like that. She looked up at the door, and waited, her hand on the gun in her desk drawer.

Biggie and Nikola appeared, smiling and laughing. Both were soaked and muddy from head to foot, their clothes torn and tattered. Biggie had some scratches on his face, but didn't seem bothered by them.

"Good lord, what did you do?" she asked Biggie.

"We played grunchuk; I haven't played for ages, didn't have anybody to play with before now."

"You're making a mess. What is grunchuk?"

"I'll clean it up. Grunchuk is a coming-of-age game. You smack the youngster in the head, he goes flying through the air and goes 'thud'. Then he gets up and smacks you and tries to make you fly through the air and go 'thud'. When a boy can compete with the adults, he is an adult."

"You hit Nikola?" A little anger crept into her voice.

"Just a little bit, you know, a friendly pat. Then he sort of patted me back, and I hit him a little harder, and then we were playing grunchuk. I didn't hurt him."

Helen stared at Biggie in disbelief. "And this is fun?"

"Sure. I haven't had anybody to play it with for sixty years. Henry and Will aren't strong enough, I'd hurt them if I ever gave them more than a baby cuff. But this guy, he can take a pretty good smack. I hit him into the water the first couple of times just to make sure he would land okay, so he hit me into the water too. It's not really part of the game, but it was fun."

"I'm almost afraid to ask, but who won?"

"It was a tie. We both got tired before either one gave up. Anyway, you wanted him back before dinner, so here he is. I'll get the mop." Biggie sloshed off to start cleaning up.

Nikola started to move wetly toward her desk full of papers, but Helen said "_Ne_" and held up her hand. He stopped and she quickly came around the desk and took him by the hand. She hesitated, and then led him to his suite. He needed dry clothes first; and there were plenty of those in his extensive closet.

She stripped him and shoved him in the shower, adjusting the temperature for him first. The soggy, torn clothing she left on the floor for later disposal. When she was sure all the mud was out of his hair she pulled him out, dried him off and took him into the bedroom to find clothing.

Having him naked in the bedroom was a temptation, but he wouldn't understand any sexual overtures, would he? He was physically an adult, so she might as well check on the development of his libido. She kissed him lightly on the lips, but he just looked at her quizzically with a faint smile. She missed him physically very much, but it was too soon. Right, clothing.

She got him dressed, avoiding the expensive suits and settling for slacks, shirt, and loafers. He looked toward the suits most of the time she was dressing him, but didn't object to the clothes she put on him. She found some pajamas, slippers and a robe and took those with too.

She took him back to the detention room. Nikola's suite was large and had two doors, she was afraid she wouldn't be able to control him physically there. Back in the detention room she fixed him a wine/plasma drink and put it in a sippy-cup she found there. There were also a lot of toys in the room now, and she knew Henry had been his usual helpful self. And he probably wanted to make sure Nikola was occupied and not making any more midnight visits to the nursery.

Nikola sat on his bed and held the cup with two hands. He drank quickly without any difficulty, and gave it back to her as soon as he was done. He gestured at the toys and said "_Da li mogu?_"

"_Da_, go ahead and enjoy yourself" Helen answered. Nikola immediately got down on the floor and started playing with a truck. Helen was glad that Henry had been very careful to avoid sexual stereotyping in his purchases for Angelina.

Will came down after dinnertime, bringing her a cold roast beef sandwich. "I heard about what happened last night. You should have woke me up. Henry was still pretty shaky this morning."

"There wasn't time, and afterwards there wasn't any point. You know Henry overreacts whenever Angelina is involved; he'll recover."

Nikola looked up. "Angelina?" he said to Helen.

"Do you remember Angelina?"

Nikola folded his arms like he was holding a baby. "Henry _cerku._"

"Well, well, well, it appears we are making progress" Helen said, pleased.

"I don't know, he doesn't seem to be much like the Nikola Tesla I knew and hated" commented Will, watching as Nikola went back to playing with the cars and trucks on the floor.

Helen defended him. "Give him time, he's hardly more than a baby, mentally. Was there something you wanted?"

"I just thought you'd like to sleep in your own bed tonight. I'll sleep on the cot."

"I don't know Will, he's . . . "

"Hardly more than a baby right. I can handle it. I want to help, and maybe he and I can get to know each other better. The adult Tesla just put me down, this one, well, we can relate to each other as equals. Maybe when he's grown up again he'll be nicer to me."

"All right. If you need me I'm just a phone call away. His pajamas, robe and slippers are there, and you don't need to worry about anything like tooth brushing."

"Let me guess, vampires don't get cavities."

"No, they don't. Put him to bed around nine. That's early I know, but I think his brain needs more sleep time than an adult. Make sure the cot fully blocks the door, so he's not out wandering around again."

"Yes, Mother. Don't worry, we'll be fine. Enjoy your night off."

Helen took her laptop and went to the door. She turned and said "Thank you Will. I hope you're right, and the two of you can develop a better relationship" and left.

Will got down on the floor and picked up a car Nikola wasn't playing with. He moved it around the edge of whatever game Nikola was intent on, gradually interacting with the vehicles Nikola was using. Will started adding sound effects. "Vroom, vroom" and tire squealing noises and soon Nikola was copying him, their respective toy vehicles careening around and crashing into things, the two of them laughing together.

At nine Nikola let Will change him into his pajamas and settle him in bed. Will set the cot against the door, stripped down to his underwear and turned off the light. Nikola already appeared to be asleep. Well, he'd had a busy day. In bed, Will lay listening to Tesla's slow steady breathing for a while, and he gradually drifted off to sleep. Fortunately, neither of them snored.

/

Bobby and Reena had both come up with several possible Abnormal mercenary groups. Along with Molly they picked the two that seemed most promising. Both had extensive experience, and apparently no morals.

One group consisted of eleven Arrendulics, tall slender lizard-like beings with poisonous fangs, claws and nasty tempers. Their leathery, scaled hides were nearly impervious to blades and small caliber bullets. Besides their natural weaponry, they carried knives, throwing stars, and garrotes, and specialized in very fast silent mass executions. Their last job had been the destruction of a small African village paid for by a rival tribe. When they were done, nothing remained alive except the flies and gathering carrion eaters.

The other group had fifteen members of a mix of Abnormals, and operated very much like human mercenaries; they were armed with automatic weapons and grenades. They called themselves the Slaughter. Their last job had been overrunning a Mexican drug lord's compound. They had been thorough and merciless, killing over forty men, and seizing both drugs and cash for their employer, a rival drug lord.

Bobby favored the Slaughter. Molly suspected her brother liked the name more than anything, but she preferred the Arrendulics. When they were done with the Sanctuary, there would be no doubt that Abnormals had done the killing, whereas the Slaughter would leave bullet-ridden corpses no different than a human attack.

Reena agreed with her. They would have to work through a third party to hire the Arrendulics; they would contact him with their offer of employment. All three of them found thoughts of Arrendulics massacring Sanctuary personnel very pleasing, indeed.

A/N: I don't speak Serbian, so I apologize for any errors. Following are translations of words and phrases used in the text:

Sestru- sister

Cerku- daughter

Hvala- thank you

Das vas upoznam sa- I'd like to introduce you to

Krevet- bed

Ne- no

Zelim- I want

Vtacik- birds

Da li mogu- may I

Da- yes

AnthropologistGirlInTheMaking, Lorienleaf, Carmesdi, and Minderismeer, thank you for your reviews/comments.


	11. Chapter 11 Six or Seven

Will woke up to the sound of a man sobbing. He sat up and saw Tesla seated on the floor amid what looked like wreckage. On closer inspection, he saw that Tesla had demolished a number of the metal vehicles they had been playing with the evening before, and used the pieces to disassemble the laptop.

But why was the man crying? He said something in an anguished voice that Will didn't understand. Was he upset because he had destroyed the toys, or the laptop, or what? Will called Helen, and hoped she would be able to make sense of the situation.

When she came to the door, he moved the cot and let her in. Immediately Nikola began talking to her.

_Zao mi je. Oprostite, Dane"_ Nikola said, miserably.

"Oh dear, we've reached that" Helen said.

Will threw his hands up and said "What? What's going on?"

"He's remembered his brother's death. We're going to need the ability to communicate more than my bits of Serbian." She got on her cell and called Henry. "Henry, can you cobble together a voice translation program, English/Serbian and Serbian/English?"

Henry replied smugly "Been working on it since yesterday. The grammar may be a bit rough still, but if you need it now . . ."

"Yes, now please. In the detention room, and bring another laptop, I think this one has had it."

"What? What happened to it?"

"Never mind, you'll see when you get here. And please get here quickly."

Will dressed while Helen picked her way through the debris to Nikola, sat down on the floor next to him, and put her arm around him. Nikola said something to her quickly, but she shook her head. "I'm sorry, Nikola, I didn't get any of that." Nikola frowned and tossed another spate of Serbian at her; she just said _"Sacekajte_!" He subsided, and they sat in silence, Nikola looking at both of them sadly and picking aimlessly at the rubble around him.

Henry showed up with two more laptops, left one on a table and set the other one up in a clear space on the floor near them. He picked up a couple of pieces of the disassembled laptop, shook his head and dropped them again. "Maybe I can use some of it for spare parts" he said uncertainly.

"Never mind that now, we need to be able to talk to Nikola; deal with the rest of this later."

"Yeah, okay. Just hit this to start the program, and hit that to stop it. You'll have to speak up, and try to enunciate. It's not going to be perfect, if something comes out weird, try to rephrase it."

"Thank you Henry. Please go start working on whatever we're going to need tomorrow."

Henry looked blank and then laughed. "I'll check my crystal ball." He and Will exchanged a fist bump, and he left.

Helen reached over and hit the key Henry had indicated. She said slowly "Nikola, tell me what you wanted to say, but say it slowly and clearly so the computer can translate for us."

Nikola spoke in Serbian, but the machine translated "I . . . I killed my brother. Dane, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean it."

"You didn't kill him Nikola, it was an accident."

"Papa thought it was my fault, and so did . . . are you my mother?"

Caught off guard, Will laughed. Both Helen and Nikola glared at him. Will said "Sorry. Tesla, she's not your mother. We're both your friends."

Nikola gave Helen a troubled look. "But I remember, you lifted me up and had me kiss Dane, in the parlor. You said it was my fault."

Helen said gently "Nikola, that never happened; it's a false memory. As you remember things, you're going to encounter several memories that were put in your head by a bad woman." Helen had seen the scenarios in the computer data they had gotten from the lab, but without Nikola's inputs.

"Why did she put memories in my head?"

"She wanted to hurt you, and she wanted to hurt me too. I'll help you identify the bad memories when they come up, and you can ignore them, okay?"

"Okay" Nikola said uncertainly, in a small voice. "Did I run at the horse and scare it?"

"You tell me."

Nikola thought for a while, and then said "No, I wasn't there when Dane rode the horse, just afterwards when he was brought home. But I did kiss him in the parlor, but it was a different parlor, the real parlor. I remember how it smelled, with all the flowers. The parlor you were in didn't have any smell. Is that how I can tell the difference?"

"Possibly, in some cases, but it may not hold true for all the false memories."

Will cleared a space and sat down on the floor with them. "Did your parents act differently towards you afterwards?"

"Mama blamed me, sort of. Papa was just sad. My sisters were sad, I was sad. I tried to be good like Dane for them, so they wouldn't miss him so much, but I couldn't. No matter how hard I tried, or what I did, it wasn't enough. I just couldn't do it."

"How did that make you feel? Will asked.

"Like I had to try harder, I had to be perfect, so they wouldn't be so sad."

"Were you perfect?"

"No" Nikola said, dejected.

"Is anyone perfect?"

Nikola shrugged, but then said "Maybe not, but Dane was close."

"Human beings aren't perfect, they can't be. Not being perfect just means you were human."

"It's okay that I wasn't perfect?" Nikola asked uncertainly.

Will reached out and put his hand on Nikola's shoulder. "Yes, it's okay. You weren't responsible for how your parents felt about Dane; you tried to be the best Nikola you could be, and that's all anyone can do."

Will dropped his hand and Helen hugged Nikola and said "You were an amazing, brilliant boy, Nikola, who grew up to be an amazing, brilliant man. Your parents, your family just missed your brother, that's all."

Nikola leaned into her and hugged her back. Then Nikola broke the hug and looked around him. "I wrecked the trucks, and I wrecked the . . ."

"Computer" Helen supplied.

"Computer. Are you mad at me?"

"No, but next time you want to take something apart, let me know. We have tools for that, and I'm sure we can find some less expensive things for you to experiment with."

"Okay. Can I go out and play now?"

"I think you'd better get dressed first. Let's go get you some clean clothes, okay?"

Helen turned off the translator, took the laptop along and led Nikola back to his suite to clean up and select another outfit. Once dressed, Nikola asked _"Gde ye_ Biggie?"

Helen turned the translator back on and said "Why don't I show you the lab? That's where Henry works, you remember Henry?" She thought Biggie could use a day to recover from the grunchuk game; Nikola of course was fine and ready to play again. But it might be wiser to steer him toward Henry; Henry was patient and could find numerous things in the lab to occupy him. Besides, it would be good practice for Henry, for when Angelina was a little older.

Nikola smiled and nodded, and she took his hand to lead him, but he pulled it back and said "You don't need to hold my hand, I can walk by myself."

"Of course" she acquiesced; _my boy is growing up_ she thought. At the lab, Henry was not at all pleased to see them, but that didn't deter Helen. She put the translating computer on the table and said "Henry, I thought you might like to show Nikola a little science."

"You want me to teach . . . " A grin spread over Henry's face. In the past, Nikola had always dominated their relationship, treating Henry somewhat disdainfully as an assistant rather than a colleague. Now it was Henry's chance to be the dominant one, to reverse their roles and have Nikola Tesla as his assistant.

"Okay, I guess I can do that. Anything in particular you want me to show him?"

"Use your own judgment; just don't give him access to anything too expensive, remember, mentally he's about six or seven."

"Okay Doc. How long do I have him for?"

"All day if you can manage it. Call me if you need help, I'll be in my office."

"Will do." After Helen was gone, Henry looked at Nikola speculatively. What demeaning task could he have him do first? But at the eager look on Nikola's face, Henry realized he wasn't going to get the revenge he had expected. Right now no task would be demeaning to Nikola. In his current mental state he couldn't handle anything complicated, so no matter what Henry had him do, Nikola would have no reason to resent it or complain about it later. Henry was just going to get to babysit.

Henry looked around. He picked up a small electric motor that he had been going to fix, and handed it to Nikola. Buying a new one wouldn't be expensive, and it should keep the vampire busy for hours trying to figure out not only what was wrong with it, but what it was, what it did, and how it did it. Croatia in the 1860's didn't have electricity, so in his current state Tesla would have no idea what he was working on. "Why don't you take that apart and see if you can figure out what's wrong with it. There are hand tools in that drawer."

Nikola took it eagerly, opened the drawer and looked at the tools one by one. He finally picked up a small flat-head screwdriver and started trying to open the casing. Henry watched him surreptitiously; Nikola wasn't even sure how to hold the screwdriver, and he had to concentrate fiercely to actually use it with untutored, clumsy hands.

It would take him hours to disassemble the unit, and then Henry expected he would give up. Children often liked to take things apart, but rarely could they put them back together again, especially with no previous exposure to tools or equipment. Still, this was Tesla, even if he was in kid mode. Henry was curious to see how far he could actually go in repairing the motor, and how long it would take.

Henry did his weekly security scan of all the sensors and cameras. It took two hours, but everything was operating properly. When he looked over to see how Nikola was coming, he was amused to see the motor completely disassembled and scattered all over the table.

No, not scattered. Nikola had laid it out methodically piece by piece like an exploded diagram. He was looking at it, head cocked to one side. He noticed Henry watching him and asked "What makes it go?"

"Electricity. Do you know what that is?"

"Yes, I think so. It is this, yes?" Nikola reached out a hand toward Henry and a spark jumped the gap and gave Henry a mild shock. Henry jerked back and said "Ow. You remembered how to give people shocks, huh? Well, watch where you're aiming that, will you?"

Nikola gave him an impish grin and picked up the plug. "This goes in the wall there?"

"That's right" Henry said, impressed that he'd made the connection from the shape of the plug to the socket.

"There is electricity in the wall?"

"Sure, in the wires that connect to the socket."

"Show me?"

Henry looked around for something harmless. The electric pencil sharpener should do. Henry took Nikola over to a desk, and put a pencil in it and let it run. Then he turned the desk light on and off. Nikola was fascinated, and Henry let him sharpen the pencil and turn the light on and off a few times. Nikola pulled the plugs out, tried the sharpener and lamp, plugged them back in and tried them again. Eventually he was satisfied, and went back to his motor.

Henry was mildly awed by not very surprised when two hours later Nikola plugged the reassembled motor into the socket and it ran. The guy was a genius, even when he was mentally not quite all there. But then Nikola put his right hand on the motor and it started to run faster, and faster, the lights flickered, and then with a huge blue spark and a yelp from Nikola, the power in the lab went off completely. The only lighting was from the screens of the two laptops that were on.

"Okay, everything's okay, just stay where you are while I find the breaker." Henry found the electrical box and reset the switch. He'd blown the power in the lab himself enough times he literally could do it in the dark. The lights came back on.

"Nikola, are you okay?" Nikola was holding his right hand closed in a fist with his left, clutched to his chest. Henry gently moved his left hand away, and pulled his right hand out so he could see how much damage there was. Nikola suddenly opened his hand and laughed. It was perfectly fine, of course.

Henry shrugged a little and said "You got me." He unplugged the burned-smelling motor. "I think we should work on something else for a while don't you?"

"Okay. Can I take apart the horseshoe?"

"The what?" Henry asked, looking at the translating computer doubtfully.

"You know, the thing ladies wear on their head when it rains."

"Hold on a minute Nikola, there's something wrong with the translation program." Henry sat down and started checking the program. He couldn't find anything wrong with it, and when he looked up from the laptop fifteen minutes later, Nikola was no longer in the lab.

"Oh no, no, no, where did he go?" He grabbed his phone to call for help, but put it away again. He didn't really want anyone to know he'd lost Nikola; what kind of a father was he going to be, if he couldn't watch one kid for one day? Admittedly a very unusual kid, but still, he had to be able to do this himself.

Henry dashed out into the hall, but couldn't see Nikola. Where could he have gone; outside maybe? Henry trotted to the nearest exit and looked around. He ran through the gardens, calling for Nikola, but got no response. He couldn't have fallen in the water, could he? Henry ran to the edge of the pool at the foot of the waterfall, but saw no evidence that Nikola had been there. Henry didn't know if a vampire could drown or not; he knew Nikola as an adult could swim, but he had no idea at what age he had learned.

Maybe he was wandering through the Sanctuary main building somewhere. Henry had to find Nikola before he decided to go visit a dangerous Abnormal or something. Henry turned back toward the building; there was something unusual . . . a figure standing on the roof looking down at him. Henry shaded his eyes against the artificial lighting. Yep, Nikola was up there perfectly safe, petting a pigeon and watching Henry down on the ground run around frantically trying to find him.

"You stay right there; don't you move!" Henry called. Nikola walked back away from the edge, out of sight.

Henry ran for the building. He had to get to the stairway to the roof before Nikola got down it and ran off somewhere else. Henry arrived panting, charged up the stairs and threw open the door.

Nikola was calmly feeding the pigeons, and looked up and waved. Henry stood there, very angry and feeling like an idiot, but glad Nikola was safe.

"Don't you ever do that again, do you hear me? You don't go wandering off, you stay with me, do you understand? Henry scolded. Nikola looked at him blankly. Of course he didn't understand, Henry didn't have the translating computer with him, but Nikola ought to be able to tell how upset Henry was by the tone of his voice. Nikola shrugged and turned back to his birds.

Henry sat down in a chair and looked at Nikola miserably. What kind of father loses the kid he's supposed to be watching? If that happened with Angelina, he'd probably have a heart attack. At least Nikola was fairly immune to injury, or worse; but Angelina wasn't, how would Henry handle it when she started walking, then running?

The door to the roof opened again. Helen was there, with the translation laptop. "I saw you running down the hall; I thought you could probably use this. What happened?"

Henry just shook his head. "He tricked me. The little . . . the big . . . he tricked me, he said weird things so I would think the translator wasn't working right, and then as soon as my back was turned he took off."

Helen set the laptop down on the table and sat down too. "He is a handful, isn't he?"

"Yeah" Henry said in a strangled voice, "You could say that."

"Henry, being a parent takes practice. Fortunately, babies grow up one day at a time, not years overnight, so normally you get to practice a great deal before your child gets to this point."

Henry nodded. "I know, it's just, I thought I would be better at this. Erika just seems to know how to be a mother, and I'm just stumbling around."

"You're doing fine. Erika doesn't know any more about being a parent than you do, the difference is she has Biggie practically at her shoulder to turn to for advice. You're learning on your own, and Nikola is a far greater challenge right now than any real child."

"You're right. What are we going to do about him, anyway? We can't let him get away with pulling tricks like that, right?"

Helen laughed and stood up. "If you want to try to spank him, go ahead, but count me out. I don't like corporal punishment, and in this case I'm not sure who would end up spanking whom. Anyway, he'll remember more by tomorrow, so there's no real point in trying to teach him anything." She patted Henry on the shoulder as she passed. "Just three more hours, then you can give him back to me. I'll be in my office."

Henry turned on the translation program and motioned Nikola over. He was done feeding the pigeons anyway, so he ambled over and plopped down in the chair Helen had used.

Henry said "There's really nothing wrong with the translator, is there. You were just fooling when you said you wanted to take apart a horseshoe."

Nikola looked puzzled. "I didn't say I wanted to smash a calliope."

Henry frowned. "Are you trying to trick me?"

Nikola looked shocked. "Don't call me bad names. It's not nice."

Henry opened his mouth and closed it again. What? Maybe the translator really was broken somehow. Then Nikola pointed at him and laughed. "I got you again!"

Henry closed his eyes and took a slow, deep breath. _Don't kill the bratty vampire, no matter how annoying he is, don't kill the big brat._ He opened his eyes, pointed at Nikola and said "Don't do that. It's not nice, and it's driving me bonkers. Can't we be friends?"

"Sure" Nikola chirped. "Can we play in the laboratory some more?"

"Yes we can. But stay with me, okay?"

"Okay, you're fun."

"That's me, fun Henry." They went back to the lab, and Henry managed to keep Nikola amused by ignoring his own work and building a small electric fan with him from scratch. They finished it just about the time Nikola was to go back to Helen, just as Henry planned.

Henry presented him and the translation laptop at Helen's office. "Here he is, we're both still alive and in one piece, and now I'm going to go be a daddy to a little girl I can still handle. See you tomorrow, Doc."

Helen reached for Nikola's hand, but then pulled back when she remembered he considered himself too old for that. "Nikola, shall we get you something to eat?"

Nikola nodded vigorously. "Can I have red wine tonight?"

Helen stopped, surprised. Surely he was too young to prefer one kind of wine over the other, or know much of anything about it?

Nikola continued. "We always had red wine for church services, and I like it."

Of course, his father had been a priest. "Yes, I have a nice merlot you will probably enjoy."

Helen noticed Nikola's coordination had improved quite a bit since yesterday as they walked down the hall, with him skipping ahead, running back to her, walking backwards, and generally going three times as far as necessary. At the detention room she gave him his animal plasma and the merlot in a plastic glass, and he drank it with no trouble. She was glad to see the broken toys and computer had been cleaned up, but the remaining toys in the room were likely too juvenile for him now.

Instead of trying to interest him in them, Helen found some classical music on the computer and let it play softly in the background while he gave her a long involved account of what he had done with the electric motor. When he finished, she gave him his pajamas to put on, and he turned away from her to change his clothes. Once in bed, she let him listen to the music for a while, and then told him stories until he went to sleep.

/

The Arrendulics drove a hard bargain, but they finally agreed on a price, with half the funds to be transferred to a bank account immediately, and the other half payable on completion of the job. They would arrive the day after tomorrow and expected housing and food to be provided. Renee agreed that she would have a map of the Sanctuary drawn up for them, so they could go over the details of the set-up with her, and come up with a plan of attack.

"Where are we going to put eleven big, armed lizards that no one will notice?" Bobby asked curiously.

Molly said "Tomorrow we'll go out to the country and find an isolated farmhouse to rent. I doubt they'll expect anything fancy, just private."

Renee nodded. "I'll need to finish putting in the details on the maps I've started, so you two will have to take care of that. Don't forget to pick up the meat for them."

"I wonder how they'll get here" Bobby mused. "I can't see them flying coach or renting a car, can you?"

Molly laughed at the mental image of the Arrendulics boarding a commercial airliner. "No, but they've been operating as a group for several years, so I'm sure they'll figure it out. I'd like to know what they do with the money. I mean, how many throwing stars and knives can they buy?"

Renee said "Maybe they're saving up to buy a tropical island somewhere, who knows?"

Bobby leaned over Renee's shoulder and looked at the map she was working on. He pointed to a red "1" with a circle around it. "What's that?"

"Helen Magnus' rooms. She's target number one, and as you can see, I have the top ten priority targets marked on the map- Tesla, Zimmerman, Foss, et cetera. If they can't get everybody, I'll say our money was well spent if they get those ten."

"And the gray area?"

"Captive Abnormal housing; hopefully they can free most, if not all of the imprisoned Abnormals."

Molly came over and peered over Renee's other shoulder. "Do you really think the Arrendulics can succeed?"

"Oh yes," said Renee, "I'm quite sure of it. And when the attack begins, I'm going to hack the Sanctuary's security system and watch the slaughter from the comfort of my living room."

A/N: Thank you, Chartreuseian and AnthropoligistGirlInTheMaking for your reviews/comments.

Serbian translations:

Zao mi je- I'm sorry

Oprostite- Forgive me

Sacekajte- Wait

Gde ye- Where is


	12. Chapter 12 Growing Independence

Helen was asleep and felt something poke her shoulder. She jerked awake, rolled off the far side of her cot onto her feet, ready to fight.

Nikola was kneeling on the floor across the cot from her, a little alarmed at her reaction. He'd only wanted to ask her something, he hadn't expected her to jump out of bed. The translating computer was on, so he could ask, but Helen spoke first.

"Nikola, what are you doing? It's three a.m."

"You said I had to ask permission before I went to help Angelina. May I go babysit now? She's crying."

"I'm glad you asked, but no, you may not." Helen couldn't hear anything, but she believed Nikola could.

"Why not? I asked like you said." Nikola whined.

Helen came around the cot and sat down near him. "Nikola, you were severely injured and you're not well yet. I know you feel all right, but you're not. When you're better, you may babysit. Right now it's time for sleeping, so please go back to bed."

Nikola stood up. "How long will that be, for me to be better?"

"I don't know, a few days at least."

Nikola walked very slowly toward his bed. "Tomorrow night?"

"Probably not."

"The night after that?"

"I don't know Nikola, we'll have to see how fast you improve."

Nikola had reached his bed and sat down on it. "How will you know when I'm well enough?"

_When you stop asking so many questions_. "There's no way to explain it to you, but I'll know. Now lie down and go back to sleep."

Nikola sighed and reluctantly slid himself under the light blanket on his bed and put his head on the pillow. "I'm not very tired."

"Well I am, so hush. Don't wake me again until at least six. Good night, Nikola."

"Good morning, Helen. It's after midnight, so it's morning."

"Yes, but three a.m. is still night time. Good night." Helen closed her eyes and went back to sleep.

Promptly at six, Helen felt her cot shake a little. "Helen? It's six, time to get up."

Helen got up. She had said six, and there was no point in arguing. Nikola might be in a literal phase; she would have to be careful what she said to him.

"Put on your robe and slippers and we'll go get you some clothes."

"I know where they are, I can go myself."

"I'm coming with you, no arguing." Helen put on her shoes took the translating laptop along.

Nikola made sure he walked in front all the way to his suite, to show her he knew the way. At the door he stopped.

"I don't have to knock on this door, do I."

"No? Why not?"

"Because it's my door."

"You remember that?"

Nikola looked at her, puzzled. "No, nobody said it was my door, but all the clothes here fit me, the bed is bigger and I would fit in it better than that one I'm sleeping in, and I like all the stuff in here. So it has to be my place."

"It is your suite Nikola, and you can go right in."

Helen followed him in. He went directly to the bedroom, but turned and looked at her in the doorway. "You don't need to come in. I can take a shower and pick my own clothes and get dressed by myself."

"Okay, I'll go next door to my suite and shower and put on clean clothes too. If you get done before me, come through this door and wait in the sitting room- the room that's similar to this one." Helen showed him the door into the adjoining suite and left it slightly open behind her.

Helen hurried through her toilet, and emerged into her sitting room just as Nikola came through the adjoining door. He was dressed in one of his vampire-made suits, completely color coordinated, and without a smudge or speck of lint. Helen couldn't help staring at him; he looked so normal, so much like his usual, grown-up self, except for the expression on his face. She wanted to take him in her arms and kiss him passionately, but restrained herself. The look in his eyes told her he wouldn't understand.

Nikola was quite proud of himself, and asked "Do you like this suit?" obviously fishing for a compliment.

Helen nodded. "It's lovely, and you look very handsome all dressed up in it. You need to keep it nice though, so if you're going to wear it you won't be able to play grunchuk or crawl around on the floor."

"That's okay, grunchuk is kind of a silly game. I know Big Guy likes it, but there's no real point to it other than to measure relative strength between two people. And we already did that and found out we're both strong. I'd rather do something else, like find out more about computers. They're interesting."

Helen considered. Henry was the computer expert, but after yesterday he was behind on his work and spending another day with Nikola would only put him further behind. Anyone reasonably conversant with computers could show Nikola the basics, and Will did say he wanted to relate better to Nikola. She took Nikola to Will's office.

Will was sipping his morning coffee and looking at the first piece of paper from the stack in his in-basket.

Helen put on a bright smile; this might be a hard sell. "Good morning, Will. As you can see, Nikola is all dressed up today, and he would like to learn about computers. Since you want to relate to him on a more equal level, I thought you would be just the person to show him."

"Uh, my in-box is overflowing, I have eighty-six E-mails waiting for me, and I really don't have time to . . ."

"Come to terms with your feelings of inadequacy around Nikola?"

Will bristled. "I don't feel inadequate; he just treats me that way . . ."

"A situation which you would like to change. Here's your chance." Helen set the translating laptop on the desk, turned and left Nikola and Will staring at each other.

Will leaned back in his chair. "Great. I'm the stuckee for the day."

Nikola turned and walked out of his office. Will leapt from behind this desk and caught up with him in the hall. "Hey, what are you doing? You can't do that."

Nikola frowned at him, and walked back into the office and stood by the laptop. "Say that again." Will followed and said "I said, you can't do that, walk out of my office like that."

Nikola replied "Of course I can, I just did. If you don't want me around I'll go somewhere else. And didn't anyone explain the computer to you? You have to be near it when you talk to me so it can translate."

"Yes, I know about the computer_." Even regressed back to childhood, he's doing it again, talking to me like I'm the child instead of him._

Nikola looked at him doubtfully.

Will was trying to keep his temper. "What I meant is, you have to stay with me; you can't go wandering off by yourself."

"Why not?"

"Because it's not safe, you might get hurt or something. Magnus wants you with me today, so stay with me."

"I wouldn't get hurt, I'm very strong, didn't you know that? Are you afraid of Helen, do you always do what she says?"

"No, I'm not afraid of her, but I work for her and so do you so we're spending the day together like she said."

"Will you show me how to work the computer?"

"I'll show you how I help run the whole Sanctuary, okay?"

Will brought another chair around behind his desk, showed Nikola how to use the mouse and let him click on his messages, one at a time while he read through them. That occupied the two of them for a little while, but Nikola soon grew bored since he couldn't read English and he started moving the mouse around and clicking on other things, asking "What's this?" after he clicked on each one. The E-mails were soon obscured by other open files and Will took back the mouse.

"Look, I have to work on this computer. Let me set my laptop up over here and you can just click on anything you want. How does that sound?" Will moved Nikola's chair to a small side table and set up his laptop for him. If Nikola wrecked it, Will was sure Henry would give him another one, and meanwhile he could get some work done.

That actually worked for several hours. Will caught up on his E-mails and started to tackle the stack of paper. Nikola worked intently at the side table, exploring the internet and whatever sites he could access using Will's laptop. He couldn't decipher very much on it, but he could look at pictures and eventually found videos to watch. Will did his best to ignore the sound and kept working.

Eventually Nikola got bored with it. "Will, I'm tired of this. Can we do something else?"

Will stopped working and said "Like what?"

"I don't know; let's play a game or something."

Will looked at the pile of work he hadn't gotten to yet. Well, nothing was red-flagged for immediate action and entertaining Nikola was a good excuse for not getting everything done. Henry had used it last night in the media room after Angelina had been put down for the night. He had complained loud and long about how he hadn't been able to get his work done because he had spent the day looking after Nikola. But there had been a definite sense that he hadn't really been all that unhappy about spending the day playing with motors and fans and such.

Will made a decision. "Okay, come on, and bring your translating laptop, we'll go down to the media room. There are lots of computer games there and I'll show you some." _And get to beat you at all my favorites._

This time of day the media room was empty; everyone else was working. Will loaded up _Alien Invasion_ and they started to play. Will won the first game easily. The second game Nikola came close to tying him, and the third game Nikola won. Will switched games.

Most of the games followed the same pattern. Will won the first contest while Nikola learned the game, but after that Nikola dominated. His reaction times were faster than Will's, and Will could see him vamping slightly; not enough to extend his claws, but there was a definite pointiness about his teeth.

After the third time this happened, Will was ready to give up. Nikola's speed more than made up for his inexperience, and he was learning each new game more quickly than the one before. But in the middle of a game of _Flashbang_, Nikola suddenly stopped playing. Will went on for a few seconds, elated that he was starting to win, until he realized something was wrong.

Nikola was staring fixedly at the screen, but he held the controller limply, not even attempting to play. Then the controller slipped out of his hands and bounced on the carpeting without him noticing.

"Nikola? What's wrong?"

Nikola didn't respond, he just sat unmoving, staring, not even blinking. Will waved a hand in front of his face with no response. Will recognized the signs of a seizure and grabbed his phone.

"Magnus, Nikola and I are in the media room, and I think he's having some sort of mini seizure."

"I'm on my way."

Will realized the flashing lights of the game could have triggered the seizure and turned it off. Nikola didn't move.

"Nikola? Buddy? Can you hear me?" Will asked.

Nikola blinked a couple of times, but continued to stare. In an odd, slurred voice he asked "Are there cats over there?"

Will was becoming alarmed. Nikola was seeing something that wasn't there, and didn't know if it was real or not. Maybe that bullet to his brain had done permanent damage?

"No, there aren't any cats in the room with us" Will said gently as Helen arrived. To Helen he said "He was completely gone for a minute or two. He's sort of back now, but he's having some kind of vision.

"Let's just give him a few minutes. Do you think the video game you were playing could have set it off?"

"Yeah, _Flashbang_ has some real intense visual effects. I had no idea it would affect him like this, though."

"It's not your fault, Will, Nikola was subject to little seizures like this when he was young. When he got older they occurred less often, and mostly stopped when he became a vampire. I'm rather surprised myself that the game triggered this." She looked thoughtful.

"What?" Will asked, seeing from her face that she had thought of something.

"It's just that Dr. Petrocelli indicated in her computer log that some of the drugs that were used on him caused seizures. That may have reawakened his susceptibility."

They both watched Nikola, who began to blink rapidly,and then looked around, his eyes focusing on them.

Helen asked "Nikola, do you know who we are? Do you know where you are?"

"Yeah, you're Helen, and he's Will, and we're in the media room. We were playing games."

"How do you feel?" Helen asked him.

"Okay. Tired, but I won most of the games."

Will muttered "You won _some_ of the games", but neither Helen nor Nikola paid any attention to him.

Helen cleared the game paraphernalia off the couch and put a couple of throw pillows near one end. "Lie down for a while; I'm sure you'll feel better soon."

Nikola stretched out and closed his eyes. Will dimmed the lights, and he and Helen moved to the other end of the room to talk.

Will asked "Do you want to do an EEG or try antiseizure medication?"

"He grew out of most of his symptoms once; let's just give him some time. In the meantime, don't flash lights in his face."

"Just out of curiosity, what symptoms didn't he grow out of?"

"He's always had flashing lights in his field of vision when he's excited. He's learned to completely ignore them; they really don't have any effect other than to annoy him slightly."

Will nodded. Slightly annoyed seemed to be Tesla's normal condition around Will. Helen went back to the couch and sat down, moving Nikola's head to her lap. She massaged his temples lightly, and saw his face relax.

Will followed her over and watched her for a minute. "Do you want to take over for the rest of the day?"

"Heaven's no, I have work to do. He should recover quickly. Just find a quieter activity; keep him calm for the rest of the day if you can."

Will picked up a magazine and turned on a small reading light. He expected Tesla would sleep for a couple of hours, but twenty minutes later Nikola stirred and sat up.

Helen stood as well. "There, good as new. You boys find something quiet to do now." She touched Will's arm lightly as she passed on her way to the door and murmured "Remember, mentally he's just a child so take it easy with him."

Will nodded in response. He was having a hard time seeing Nikola as a child, rather than someone to spar or compete with.

Nikola had crossed his legs and was jiggling his foot impatiently. "Can we do something else now? Just sitting here is boring."

Will said, "Sure. Let's watch a movie, okay?"

Nikola was willing, but it didn't work out very well. As soon as the dialog started the translating computer repeated it in Serbian over other English dialog, which the computer missed translating because it hadn't finished the previous sentence. The result was both Serbian and English being spoken at the same time, and neither of them was enjoying it. Will stopped the movie. Now what?

Will decided the media room wasn't working out, so he took Nikola and the translating computer to the game room. Ping pong or Foosball was probably too exciting right now, but Nikola was eying the pool table with interest.

"Do you want to play pool?" Will asked hopefully. He was pretty good at it and figured he could beat Nikola soundly and repeatedly. Nikola nodded eagerly. "Show me?"

Will explained the game and demonstrated some shots. Then he racked the balls and told Nikola they would play Eight Ball, and explained the rules. He let Nikola break.

Nikola's cue ball spun off center as it approached the one ball, struck it and glanced off to the side, barely breaking the balls apart. Will put down two solids before he missed, and Nikola hit his intended striped ball crookedly with his cue ball. The game continued with Will steadily clearing the solid balls off the table, and Nikola shooting odd, apparently badly-aimed shots. Nikola managed to put down one striped ball before Will sank the eight ball.

Will was going to rack the balls again, but Nikola put down his cue. "I can't control my shots very well yet. Could we play tomorrow instead?"

"Sure." Will looked around, trying to find something else they could do.

"Can we go feed the pigeons?"

"Good idea." Will took the translating laptop and they went to the roof. He let Nikola feed, water, pet, and play with the pigeons for an hour, until Nikola started spending more time looking at the grounds below than at the pigeons.

Finally Will said "Okay, that's enough for today. Do you want to go for a walk in the gardens?"

Nikola put down the pigeons he was holding and walked over to the edge of the roof. He started taking rapid deep breaths. Will looked at him quizzically, until Nikola said "Now I feel light, I can just float down." Nikola stepped off the edge of the roof. Will grabbed for him, but he came nowhere near reaching him in time.

Will watched, horrified, as Nikola fell; at least until he saw Nikola vamp halfway down. Nikola landed in a crouch, stood up and waved at Will with a big smile.

Will yelled "Wait right there for me!" He ran for the stairs, but when he reached the area where Nikola had landed, he was nowhere in sight. Why did this seem familiar? Oh yes, Henry had explained how Nikola had ditched him yesterday. But Henry had found him with the pigeons, and they had just come from the pigeons, so where could Nikola be?

Then Will spotted him on the far side of the underground river. How had he gotten over there so quickly? Probably just jumped over; Will had to go around, over the bridge. The building on the far side held most of the Abnormals, including the most dangerous ones. Someone needed to head Nikola off.

Will took out his cell phone and rang Declan. Declan ran that segment of the Sanctuary and should be in his office. But had anyone explained to him what was going on with Tesla?

When he answered Will said "Declan, listen carefully. Tesla is headed for your building. He's not himself, he only understands Serbian, and I have no idea what he intends to do. Head him off, will you?"

Declan was both intelligent and flexible; working with Abnormals, the unexpected wasn't all that unusual. He accepted what Will told him without arguing. "Is he dangerous?" Will could hear Declan's footsteps as he talked.

"No, and don't hurt him or anything. He's just . . . kind of confused; he's had a memory loss. I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Right." Declan hung up and reached the outer door just before Tesla did. Declan got outside and put himself between Nikola and the door. Nikola stopped.

Nikola cocked his head to one side and said "Zdravo. Zovem se Nikola. Kako se zovete?"

Declan didn't understand the words, but he caught "Nikola" and assumed correctly that Tesla was introducing himself. "Hello Nikola, I'm Declan. Why don't you let me show you around?" Declan beckoned and Nikola willingly followed.

The ground floor held Abnormals that were more annoying than dangerous. Declan led Nikola to the Nubbin enclosure and let him look at the cute little creatures. While Nikola was trying to interact with them through the plexiluminum, Declan called Will and let him know where they were. Soon Will came panting up to join them with the translation laptop.

"Nikola, I thought we had an understanding. We were supposed to stay together today, remember?"

Nikola turned away from the Nubbins. "I didn't stop you from coming with me. You could have just jumped down too."

"I can't do that, I'd get hurt."

"Well, it's not my fault you can't do the things that I can do, is it?" Nikola asked with something close to his usual air of superiority.

_Well, at least he didn't call me "Junior"._ Will grimaced but kept his temper. "No, it's not, but you could have waited for me to take the stairs."

"You're too slow." Nikola turned to Declan. "Thank you Mr. Declan for showing me these . . ."

"Nubbins."

"Nubbins. It's time for me to eat, so I have to go now. Bye." Nikola turned abruptly and walked away, Will trailing after. Nikola took the long way, across the bridge, and went directly to Helen's office. At her door, he turned and took the laptop from Will. "I won't be needing you anymore today."

Will lost his temper. "You inconsiderate, egotistical . . ."

Nikola looked Will in the eye and deliberately turned off the translation program, which made Will even angrier. Nikola went into Helen's office and closed the door behind him. He could still hear Will ranting, but didn't understand a word.

He flipped the program back on and smiled at Helen, who was working and hadn't looked up. "Helen, can you show me where you keep my food? And the wine? Then I can fix my food myself and I won't have to bother you."

Helen looked up then, and smiled back. She had heard Will's explosion, but that was between him and Nikola. "That's very considerate of you; of course I will show you." She knew very well he wanted access to the wine more than he wanted to relieve her of the burden of making his food every day, but the more independent he became the more she could get back to her regular routine. And the closer he was to becoming a grown-up again, and she very much wanted him grown up.

She showed him where the animal plasma was stored, and also showed him his medication. She'd been adding it every day without mentioning it, but now she explained how he needed it to stay healthy. He nodded and dutifully added it to the mixture he was making; she would check the medication stocks every day for a while to make sure he was using the correct amount.

She took him to the wine cellar. It was twice the size of the one in the old Sanctuary building, and that one had been quite large. She anticipated the look on his face when he saw it and she wasn't disappointed. His eyes fairly gleamed as he walked up and down the racks of bottles. He couldn't read the labels yet, but he instinctively stopped in front of the oldest wines.

She stopped him when he reached for one. He had been going for a very dry wine; she doubted he would like it, and she didn't want the bottle to be wasted. When he was a little more mature he would like it, but for right now she selected a slightly sweet red and handed it to him.

"Why don't you take your plasma mixture and wine, and enjoy them in your rooms? There are glasses in a cabinet in the sitting room. You can sleep there from now on too, if you want."

Nikola's broad grin was her reward. "Really? I don't have to go back to that other room?"

"No, you don't, on one condition. You have to give me your word of honor that you will stay in your rooms until morning. No going to visit Angelina, no going up to the pigeons, no wandering around the halls. Promise?"

Nikola didn't hesitate. "Promise, cross my heart. At least for tonight."

Helen shook her head, but she was smiling; that was Nikola being slippery, an art form he had perfected. If she had to she would make him promise every day for one night until he was back to himself. It was easier than trapping him physically in the detention room, and he was old enough now to understand what a promise meant.

Helen gave him a chaste kiss on the cheek. "All right, off you go then." She went to the security monitor room and watched him on the monitors until he had gone into his suite. Her Nikola would always keep his word to her, although not necessarily to anyone else. But she wasn't that sure about this Nikola yet, his personality was still forming and even boys who grew up to be good men didn't always tell the truth as a child.

She watched on the monitors for a while, but Nikola didn't reappear. Well, he had his first full bottle of wine to enjoy, so that should keep him occupied until bedtime. And at least tonight, everyone got to sleep in their own beds.

/

Molly and Bobby couldn't find a farmhouse to rent, but they did get a fairly nice three bedroom two bath home in the woods that couldn't be seen from the road. It came with appliances, a two car garage, a large shed, and a barn-like storage structure. Good enough.

Molly went to buy food and essentials, while Bobby rented cots and living and dining room furniture. He went for quantity over quality, not knowing if the Arrendulics even used furniture. They wouldn't be there long anyway, probably no more than a few days. If they all had beds, chairs, and a place at a table, what more did they need? Oh, lamps; he picked up a couple for the living room which had no overhead light.

Molly bought as much meat as she thought would fit in the freezer and refrigerator, but she also got coffee, tea, soda, juice, butter, eggs, milk, bread, fruit and canned goods. Maybe the big lizards would just eat the meat, but if she only bought meat people might think she was keeping lions and tigers or something and get curious. Besides, maybe the Arrendulics liked the occasional side dish.

She also got plates, utensils, mugs, and cooking equipment other kitchen and bathroom supplies, and linens, towels, and blankets. She assumed the Arrendulics would find ways to entertain themselves.

When everything had been delivered, she called Reena and let her know the address and GPS location, which Reena relayed to the Arrendulics. They were already traveling, and said they would arrive very early the next morning, well before dawn, and expected to be met at the house by someone with the key. When Reena called Molly and told her, Molly immediately volunteered her brother. No way was she meeting mercenary lizard men in the dark.

Bobby wasn't happy about it either. "They want equality until something like this comes along and then it's 'let the man do it'" he grumbled. Molly punched him in the arm.

"Ow! What was that for?"

"We're the brains of this outfit, you're the brawn, so do the brawn job. Besides, would you really want your sister to meet eleven strange males of any kind in the dark?"

"No, I guess not. But I don't want to meet eleven strange males in the dark either."

"Don't whine. Let's get three rooms at that motel we saw; then you can drive back here and wait for them. Reena will come out tomorrow with her maps, so find out what time will be good for them when you give them the key."

Bobby left Molly at the motel, and drove back to the house. He went in and settled himself on one of the cots, setting the alarm on his phone to wake him at midnight. He might as well get a few hours of sleep, instead of being exhausted when they showed up.

At midnight the alarm woke him and he used the bathroom, then took a blanket outside with him and sat in the car with the windows up and the doors locked. He wanted to be very sure the Arrendulics knew he was on their side before meeting them face to face.

A/N: Thank you to Lorienleaf, AnthropoligistGITM, and Neverendingimagination for your reviews/comments.


	13. Chapter 13 Reawakening Talents

Helen awoke early, as she usually did, but lay in bed for a few minutes listening. All was quiet, which might be good or might be bad. Was Nikola out wandering around, or still asleep?

She put on her robe and slippers and went through the adjoining door to Nikola's sitting room. The bottle of wine was empty, and it and a wine glass were sitting on a table making rings on the wood. There were half a dozen books scattered around, all in Serbian or Croatian. There was a Bible, a translation of Nikola's favorite poet, George Viereck, that Nikola had always dismissed as being awkwardly written, and several old, out of date science books.

Helen was encouraged by the messiness; it looked very much vintage Nikola. She quietly opened the door to his bedroom, and found him sprawled in bed. He opened one eye to a slit and said "Go 'way" and closed it again. She smiled and left. Staying up to the wee hours of the morning and sleeping late was normal for him. She moved the bottle and glass on to coasters and made a mental note to tell the Big Guy to see what he could do about the rings.

Helen bathed and dressed, taking her time for a change. She stopped down at the lab, and found Henry typing furiously on his computer, which she thought commendable, until she realized he was playing a very old video game. He stopped as she walked over and hit a few keys, and by the time she came around and could see the screen he had his actual work visible.

"Magic Forest of Avalon?" she guessed.

"Dragon Adventures" Henry replied sheepishly, knowing he'd been caught.

Helen didn't really mind, Henry always got his work done, but she didn't want him slipping over into too much game time, not enough work time.

"Henry, I'm leaving Nikola on his own today. Please keep an eye on him on the security monitors will you?"

"Do you think that's wise, well of course you do or you wouldn't be doing it but he tends to get into trouble and I can't stop him from here if I see him heading somewhere he shouldn't be heading."

"He's not a baby anymore; I suspect he's in the ten to twelve range at the moment. He should be able to spend the day on his own, but if you see him doing something dangerous to himself or someone else, call me. Outside of that, just leave him be."

"Okay, you're the boss."

Helen went on to her office, and Henry set the security system to give a beep when it detected movement in the residential hallway outside Nikola's suite.. He expected he would get a lot of beeps before Nikola appeared, but that was better than missing him completely.

The security system beeped a number of times, but around ten Henry finally saw Nikola emerge, and turned off the notification alarm. He watched Nikola go to the recreation room and head directly for the pool table. Nikola selected a cue, chalked it, and racked the balls. When he started playing Henry set another notification beep for the hallway outside the rec room, and went back to his own work.

Two hours later Nikola emerged and went down to the wine cellar. Henry wondered if he ought to let Helen know, but Nikola wasn't exactly endangering anyone when he came out with four bottles of wine and took them to his suite. Then he went up on the roof to spend some time with the pigeons, so Henry set the security system to let him know when someone used the stairs to the roof, and turned back to his work.

Nikola spent about an hour on the roof, then Henry watched him going through the halls to his own suite, pick up his laptop and go to . . . Henry closed the laptop as Nikola came into the lab.

"Zdravo, Henry" Nikola said, and set his translating laptop up on a table.

"Hi, Nikola, what's up?"

"The ceiling, the opposite of down, and something Bugs Bunny says."

"Bugs Bunny? Where did you learn about him?"

"I figured out how to make the computer change everything from English to Serbian, so I learned a lot last night. Hey Henry, can I babysit Angelina tonight? I'm up late anyway, so it wouldn't be any trouble."

"Yeah, I don't think that's a very good idea. I mean, what do you know about babies?"

"A lot; I read a whole babysitter's guide on line. And she likes me, you know she does."

"Let me talk to Erika and I'll get back to you" _someday in about a month or two_.

"Okay. Can I help you in the lab today?"

Henry had an inspiration, a way to keep Nikola occupied and out of his hair. "Actually, there's a sensor out again in sector 3C. That's the second time this month, I think something's shorting it out. If I show you on the computer where it is, do you think you can replace the sensor and fix the problem? If it's too hard, you can come back and get me."

A grin spread across Nikola's face, and Henry could practically see his chest puffing out at the thought of being given a real job to do by an adult. "Sure, I know about electricity. Show me where it is, I'll take care of it for you."

Henry showed him the location, told him the security codes he needed to know, and gave him a new sensor, a head lamp in case the lighting failed, and a tool belt with what he thought Nikola would need. After Nikola left, Henry opened up the laptop with the security camera feeds and watched long enough to be sure he was headed the right direction.

Nikola was elated. He hadn't had the opportunity to go anywhere beyond the gardens yet, and now he had an official mission in the tunnels. He didn't need the security codes going outward, but he would need them coming back. He stopped at each checkpoint and made sure everything was operating properly, just in case something might be affecting the area he was going to be working in.

When he got to the burned-out sensor, he checked all the wiring and found a wire with damaged insulation from a sharp point of rock in the groove where it was hidden. He smoothed the rock, replaced the wire, and then replaced the sensor. He stood there for a while, tracking the electricity through the wires. Everything seemed to be all right, although the pattern seemed a bit odd. Well, Henry had just told him to fix the problem, and he had fixed it, he wasn't going to mess with anything else.

But as long as he was in the tunnels, he might as well explore a bit. He'd finished quickly; Henry wouldn't miss him for a long time. As long as he didn't go too far off the main tunnel where the sensors were, he couldn't get lost. And who knows what interesting things he might find in one of the side tunnels?

None of the side tunnels would lead anywhere in particular or they would have sensors in them or be blocked, Nikola knew that. But probably no one had explored them very thoroughly, just checked to make sure no one could get in that way. Nikola left the burned-out sensor in the tunnel to pick up on his way back, and walked down the main tunnel looking for a side tunnel that no one might have explored.

He found one not too far down the tunnel that was just a shadowed slit in the wall, but widened a few feet in. Nikola turned on his headlamp and noted the rough surfaces that appeared to be natural and unaltered. Good, he didn't want one that people had fixed up and walked around in all the time. He moved further in.

He found an electrical box on the wall. That seemed odd, to have a box connected to the security entry controls out where anybody could find it. He opened it and saw that it could be operated by remote control, which didn't seem right either. Well, he could ask Henry about it later, there was probably a good reason that he just didn't know about.

Nikola went further down the tunnel. It got narrow again, then ended in a pocket cavern with a lot of stalactites and stalagmites and a low ceiling. But his headlamp showed something white back in the rocks, so Nikola wiggled and picked his way through to see what it was.

It was a bone, with some dried flesh still on part of it. And there were more bones as well, in fact, there was a skull to go with the bones that was definitely human. There were scraps of rotting cloth and leather, and bits of metal from a belt buckle. He found the remains of a tool belt, too, with tools in it very much like the one he was wearing.

Nikola thought about that. What could have killed this person? He didn't see anything obvious, like damage to the skull or anything. Well, there wasn't anything he could do to help that person anymore, so he might as well just go back. He would tell Henry about it later; no, maybe he should tell Helen.

Nikola went back the way he had come, picked up the dead sensor and headed back to the Sanctuary. He had no trouble using the security codes to go back through all the checkpoints, although he was tempted just to send a pulse to that box and see if he could open all the checkpoints at once. But that would probably alarm Henry, and he would get in trouble again.

Nikola went back to the lab and picked up his computer and left the burned-out sensor. Henry wasn't there. Nikola decided to wear the tool belt and headlamp for a little while longer, he thought it made him look grownup and important to walk around with real equipment.

It took him a while, but eventually he found Helen's office. The door was open, but he knocked politely anyway.

Helen looked up from her desk and smiled. "Nikola, it's nice to see you. Have you been playing repairman?" she asked, noticing the tool belt.

Nikola frowned and stiffened, deeply offended. "No, I haven't been _playing_ anything. I replaced a sensor in the tunnels, and found a damaged wire and fixed that, and smoothed the jagged rock that damaged it as well."

"Oh. I'm sorry" Helen said, but Nikola had already turned on his heel and stalked off. Let her find the body herself, it wasn't going anywhere.

Nikola went back to the lab and dumped the tool belt and headlamp next to the sensor. He was in no mood to wait around for Henry, so he went back to his rooms. He could watch things on the computer, read books, and drink wine until it was time to eat. That would make it almost a good day, except he hadn't invented anything and Helen had treated him like a little kid.

Henry had only been out of the lab a few minutes. He found the sensor and equipment when he returned. Nikola was back, so he reviewed the security tapes from the last few minutes, saw Nikola go to Helen's office and stand in the door way a few seconds, come back to the lab, and then leave almost immediately and go to his suite. Henry set the notification alarm for the residential hallway again, but Nikola hadn't come out by the end of the work day.

Henry let Helen know that Nikola was in his own rooms, and knocked off for the day. Helen decided it was time to pay Nikola a visit; he should have cooled off by now, and they could talk.

She picked up his plasma and medication on her way; it would give her an excuse to knock on his door. But when she reached her suite, the adjoining door was ajar, so she rapped and went in.

Nikola was sprawled on the couch, wine in one hand, book in the other, with the laptop running a movie on the table in front of him. He sat up when she entered, put down the book and ended the movie, putting the computer back in translation mode.

"I brought you dinner" Helen said offering the plasma and medication.

"Thank you" Nikola said formally.

Helen handed it to him; he dumped half of each in his wine and chugged it. Then he poured the other half of the plasma and medication in the glass, and filled it to the brim with wine.

Helen stood in front of him, a little awkwardly. "Nikola, I'm sorry I thought you were playing before. When you are recovering from an injury like this, there are no visible signs of how far you have come. And everything won't come back to you in exact order; the damage to your brain wasn't homogenous, your recovery won't be either. Your life memories will come back mostly in order, but there's no way for me to know what skills you have reacquired at any point in time."

Nikola sipped his wine mixture. Then he visibly relented, smiling and patting the couch next to him. "Would you like some wine? I have more glasses."

"I know you do, and yes I would." Helen fetched another glass from the cabinet and sat down on the couch next to him. He filled her glass, and when he set the bottle down on the table she moved it to a coaster. The previous rings were gone, but new ones were forming.

"Nikola, please put the bottle and glasses on coasters so they don't damage the furniture, all right?"

"Okay" Nikola replied, but he wasn't looking at the wine bottle, he was sneaking looks at her chest.

Helen noticed. _Oh dear, we're starting that again_ she thought_. He's a little young for puberty, isn't he?_ _Apparently not, and he always has been precocious, but I didn't expect it quite this soon._

She needed a distraction. "Why don't you go down to the game room? There will be people there after dinner and you can play something with them- pool perhaps."

Nikola finished his glass of wine and food, and said "I guess I could. Are you going to be there?"

"In a little while. I'm going to have dinner and do a few personal things, but I'll stop down later."

Nikola went down to the game room with his laptop. Will was there, playing Foosball with someone Nikola didn't know. Will won, and the other person didn't want to play again.

"Will, do you want to play Eight Ball again?" Nikola asked hopefully.

"Sure. I'll spot you a couple of balls."

"No, I think I can beat you. In fact, I'll bet on it."

Will hesitated. He didn't want to take money from a kid, but Nikola was getting older mentally every day, so maybe a small wager would teach him a lesson.

"How about $5?"

Nikola nodded. "I don't have any money with me, but I can give you IOUs if I lose."

Will smiled and laid $5 on the rail. "That's perfect." And later, when Nikola was back to himself, making him pay the IOUs publicly for losing to Will at pool would be very enjoyable.

Nikola broke. He hit the one ball solidly, but nothing went down. The game was closer, with Nikola sinking three of his balls before Will won. Nikola wanted to play again.

"I'll bet you $20 this time. I know I can win" he said, while signing a $5 IOU that Will wrote out for him.

They played again. Nikola acted angry and frustrated every time he missed a shot, and at the end, he had only put down four balls when Will sank the eight ball.

"Once more. I'll bet you a thousand dollars. I have that much, don't I?"

"I'm sure you do," Will said; he knew how much Nikola got paid, and even though a lot of Nikola's funds were somewhere currently unknown, he certainly had at least that much. "But that's a lot of money. Are you sure you want to bet that much?"

Nikola said "Absolutely" as he signed the $20 IOU. By this time several people had drifted over to watch the game. As word of the size of the bet spread, more people crowded around to watch.

Nikola broke again, since he had lost the last game. He hit the cue ball sharply and it hit the one ball slightly off center; the striped fifteen ball went in the corner pocket. Nikola chalked his cue and looked at the balls spread out on the table for a few seconds.

Then he put down the eleven ball, and the cue ball backed up and aligned itself for the nine. Nikola put that in, the cue ball bounced off the rail and lined up with the four. Will started feeling uneasy. Nikola was having an extraordinary run of luck- or was he?

Nikola kept sinking balls, until all he had left was the six, and then the eight. Will was pretty sure Nikola's luck had run out, though, the six was partly behind the seven ball, and there wasn't a clear shot off of the cushions either.

Nikola chalked his cue again, and considered. Then he said "Six in the corner." Will couldn't believe it, didn't he see he couldn't get at it with the cue ball?

Nikola hit the cue ball off center. It went spinning just past the seven, and then _curved _in toward the six, hitting it into the pocket. Will stared at it open-mouthed. He'd never seen anyone do that with the cue ball.

But the cue ball came to rest completely behind the one ball. If the one ball hadn't been there, Nikola would have had an easy shot at the eight ball that was near the side pocket. Again, the other solids were blocking any kind of bank shot.

But Nikola didn't hesitate, lining up the shot as if the one ball wasn't there, and calling "Eight ball in the side pocket." Will wasn't sure what he did, but Nikola hit the cue ball low and hard, and it jumped over the one ball, rolled weakly to the eight ball and tapped it in. Nikola had run the table and won without Will ever having a chance to shoot.

Nikola racked his cue, sauntered over and tore up the two IOUs he had signed. Then he said impertinently "You owe me $975. I would prefer cash, but I'll take a check if you don't have that much on you."

The crowd was buzzing, and Will exploded. "You hustled me! You vampire freak . . . "

"Will!" Helen said from the back of the crowd. She had arrived in time to see Nikola's last two shots.

"It's not fair, he played me."

"It was fair when you thought you were the far better pool player."

Will compressed his lips, angrily pulled out his checkbook and wrote the check. He handed it to Nikola, who smiled and waved it gently like a victory flag and got a little applause from the crowd. But the show was over. The crowd dispersed as people went back to other activities.

Nikola folded the check and put it in his inside jacket pocket. He picked up his laptop, and as he walked out past Will he said "Anytime you want a rematch, let me know." Will gave him an obviously false smile in return, and then turned back to Helen. He took her elbow and steered her out to the hallway where they could talk privately.

"You could have warned me. I thought his brain rebuild was supposed to be sequential. It seems his pool-playing ability jumped the line, unless he was a pool shark when he was twelve?"

"No, he wasn't, and yes, it seems his pool-playing skill did jump forward. His mechanical ability seems to have done so also. I insulted him earlier suggesting he was playing at being a repairman, when in fact he had just replaced one of the security sensors and repaired a wiring fault." She didn't mention Nikola's prurient interest in her breasts. That wasn't something anyone else was going to have to deal with.

"So we don't really know what to expect or when to expect it. He could suddenly remember his conditioning and attack us."

"I don't think that's likely for quite a while yet. Keep in mind he has over a century of memories before it is even remotely possible that that memory will emerge. Everything that has come out of sequence has been by less than a decade, and has been triggered by him being introduced to it earlier than he originally was."

"When do you think he'll start speaking English again?"

"Very soon. He began studying English, German, and French around the age of fourteen, and I suspect his exposure to English from us might well stimulate his linguistic abilities."

"So tomorrow he might start calling me 'Junior' again?"

"Probably not, that should be at least a week away. But eventually he'll remember he doesn't call you that anymore, so just grit your teeth and smile for a few days."

Will gritted his teeth and gave her a grimace. "Right" he said, without changing his expression.

/

Bobby was dozing when he heard the crunch of tires on the gravel driveway. The clock on the dashboard said 3:00 a.m., and he saw two black Humvees pull up by the house. A small light went on over the front door, activated by the motion.

The Arrendulics got out. They weren't at all what Bobby expected.

He had expected them to be more like a Gorn from Star Trek or something, but in person they were less lizardlike and more snakelike. Their arms and legs were attached at the sides of their torsos, and some of them held their limbs against their sides and slithered across the ground. Others walked upright on their legs, holding up long sinuous tails, and few held their legs against their bodies and slithered with the back half while holding up the front half and using their arms.

One of the latter approached the car. Bobby lowered the window an inch and held the end of the house key out of the window. The Arrendulic reached out and took it with a long, slim, scaled hand with short heavy claws. It smiled at him with lips that seemed too mobile for a snake-like mouth.

"Thank you" it said with perfect diction. "Is the meat inside?"

Bobby had expected it to hiss when it talked, and took a moment to pull himself together. He lowered the window another two inches and said "Yes, there's some in the refrigerator and more in the freezer. There are other foods too, we didn't know what you would want."

"Good. I am Kok, I will be the intermediary since I speak English the best. We will eat and rest now, but would like to meet this afternoon to go over maps and strategy. Would two o'clock be acceptable?"

"Sure, two is fine. See you then."

Kok slithered back to the house to open the door. The Arrendulics had unloaded their gear and were waiting for him, except for three that had opened the large door of the storage building and were backing the Humvees in out of sight.

Bobby drove back to the motel. He left simple messages for Molly and Reena that just said "Mission accomplished, they want to meet at two at the house." He went to bed.

Molly and Reena let him sleep late. When he finally emerged from his room and had gotten some breakfast at a small café on the other side of the motel parking lot, the three of them met in Reena's room.

She went over the completed maps and plan with them, but she was the strategist and they had nothing to add. Bobby told them how the Arrendulics really looked, making Molly shudder.

Molly asked "Do I have to go to the meeting? I can't stand snakes, they creep me out. Big snakes that can talk and probably swallow me whole are even worse."

Reena gave her a disappointed look. "You don't have to, but it would be better if you did. That way they will know that you are one of the people hiring them, that you are on their side. It will be safer for you if you ever meet them alone."

"All right, but I don't have to touch any of them, do I?"

"No, in fact I would recommend that none of us touch them unless they offer to shake hands or something. We have no idea how they would react."

A little before two the three left the motel and drove to the house. Halfway up the drive, one of the Arrendulics with a walkie-talkie emerged from the woods and peered into the car as they slowly passed. Bobby waved to him, and the Arrendulic took no action other than to speak into the walkie-talkie.

They parked at the house. It looked empty, blinds closed and drapes drawn. But as they went up the stairs to the door, it opened and an Arrendulic stepped aside to let them enter.

Inside, the cots were folded and neatly stacked against the walls. Arrendulics could be heard moving around in other rooms, and there were thumping sounds in the basement, but there were only two of them in the living room. The dining room table had been brought in and set in the middle of the room.

Reena said "My name is Querina, but everyone calls me Reena. I have the maps and will go over the strategy with you."

One of the Arrendulics said "I am Kok and this is Dod. He is our tactician, and he speaks some English but I will translate as needed. Please put the maps on the table and explain them to us."

Reena did so, seeming to be quite comfortable standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the Arrendulics. Bobby found chairs and put them on the other side of the table so he and Molly could be part of the council without being too close to the snake people.

Reena went over her plan. She showed them where the targets would likely be at night, and provided photos of her top ten. She explained how many of the Abnormals were kept locked up in the other large building, and even though some could be dangerous, they should be set free. She also went over Sanctuary security measures and what weapons the residents were likely going to be able to produce on short notice.

Dod and Kok asked questions, most of which she could answer. Her time spent living at the Sanctuary hadn't been wasted. She also showed them how she had rigged one underground tunnel so her remote control could open all the security checkpoints without triggering an alarm. It wouldn't stay open for very long, since the Sanctuary security system would reset the checkpoints automatically on a cycle she estimated to be between four and five minutes long. But if they moved quickly, the Arrendulics could penetrate through to the main cavern in that time with no trouble.

The Arrendulics biggest concern was opposing weapons. Reena knew that Helen Magnus would undoubtedly produce at least one gun, but she had no idea what caliber. The Fosses were Abnormals but they would fight against freeing the captive Abnormals. The Arrendulics could expect their alternate forms to be very dangerous.

Tesla could also be dangerous, both with fangs and claws but also with his ability to handle electricity. However, Reena wasn't sure of his status; he was a high priority target but he could be anywhere in the facility and he might or might not fight.

Big Guy was not a particular target, but she warned them that he was very strong and would fight ferociously, most likely without weapons.

The rest of the targets were human or had no alternative fighting forms; the worst the Arrendulics could expect were guns or whatever objects might be at hand that could be used as weapons. It was critical that the attack be a surprise so the Sanctuary personnel did not have access to their armory.

They agreed that six Arrendulics would go for the residential building, secure the armory and try for the ten targets; five would hit the Abnormal prison and free as many as they could. When the six had killed as many of the targets as they could find, all would withdraw whether or not all the Abnormals were freed.

Reena agreed. "When will you carry out the operation?"

"We will travel tonight; tomorrow night we will attack."

"So soon?"

"There is no reason to wait. The longer the wait, the more likely things will change from what you know. You have the other half of our payment, do you not?"

"I have it. Do not return to this house, though, we won't be here. When I have assurance that the mission is complete, I will transfer the rest of the funds."

"What assurance do you need? Shall we bring you heads?"

"No. Wear these." Reena handed them six small cameras that could clip on to a harness or be worn on a chain. "I'll watch you kill my enemies."

"Do you wish these back afterwards? We have no mailing address for you."

Reena laughed. "Do what you want with them, I don't need them back."

Kok examined one of the little cameras. "Perhaps we will make a movie. Do people still watch, I believe they are called, "snuff films"?

A/N: Thank you, Anthro, for your continued support. It really does encourage me to work on the next chapter.


	14. Chapter 14 Puppy Love

In the morning, Helen found a piece of paper taped to her bedroom door. Only one other person had access to her suite, so she assumed it was from Nikola, and she was right. The first surprise was that it was written very neatly in English, and the second was the content. It read:

_Beautiful Helen_

_Your eyes are not limpid pools_

_They are whirlpools swirling mysteriously,_

_Drowning me in their depths._

_Your hair is not a shining waterfall_

_It is a dark wave that engulfs me,_

_My head spinning with its opium scent._

_Your lips are not rosebuds_

_But rich dark heavy-scented wine_

_That fills my head and makes me drunk._

_Your skin is not silk,_

_It is incandescent moonlight_

_And I become a lunatic in its glow._

_Your beauty is not that of the sun,_

_It is the entire Milky Way_

_Across the night sky, entrancing me._

_You are the music of the world,_

_It soars in my mind_

_And I can hear nothing else._

_You are the flame to my moth;_

_Brilliant, dangerous, endlessly fascinating._

_I beg you, Helen, warm me gently._

_ Your Nikola_

"Good lord, English and puberty have hit him at the same time, and I am his first puppy love" Helen said aloud. What was she going to do? She wanted him back, but mentally he wasn't prepared for a real relationship. On the other hand, she didn't want to reject him either. She didn't want to hurt his feelings, and she would find it highly unpleasant if he developed a crush on some other woman instead.

Perhaps a long courtship was in order; something around 140 years would be about right. Helen went to do her morning routine, her mind busy with the problem of keeping Nikola interested, while keeping their relationship at a very innocent level. Unfortunately, the poem didn't exactly scream "innocent love" but rather "total infatuation", and young teenage boys were not noted for their desire for innocence either.

Well, she had a little time to think about it. She went to her office to work, and saw her little collection of memorabilia from Nikola's Language of Flowers courtship. Perhaps she could interest him in that again, but she didn't hold out much hope for it. The adult Nikola had his own work which took up most of his time and energy; teenage Nikola had nothing to do besides focus on her.

Ah, time to call in Henry. Surely he could find something for Nikola to do that would keep him busy and challenged for a few days. She called Henry on his cell.

"Henry, do you have some work for Nikola for a few days?"

"Um, not really. Nothing has broken, everything is working fine; I don't have that much to do myself, just normal maintenance."

"Then perhaps you have time to work with him on a new invention of some kind."

"Like what? Is there something you need?"

"No, not that I can think of, other than occupying Nikola."

"Do you want me to just babysit?"

Helen sighed. "No, he's too advanced for that, I'm afraid he would see through the charade if there's no real work for him to do. But if anything comes up that he could do for you, please call." _Please, please call._

It was less than an hour later that she sensed Nikola in the doorway before he knocked. She looked up and smiled; if her smile was a little less than enthusiastic, he didn't notice.

"I remembered English. Did you get my poem?" he asked, with a very slight trace of a Serbian accent.

"I did. I was a bit surprised; you don't usually care to share your efforts at writing."

"Well, it was for you, so . . . how did you like it?"

"I'm extremely flattered, and you have a very good command of English. I think it might be a bit exaggerated, though, don't you?"

"No, that's how I feel. Maybe I can't express it exactly right yet, but I do think you're the most beautiful person I've ever known."

There was an awkward silence. Nikola came further into the room and stood in front of her desk. "Would you like to go for a walk in the gardens? Some of the flowers are starting to bloom."

Helen hesitated. She really didn't have anything urgent waiting for her; in fact, her workload had been rather light the last couple of days. And a walk in the gardens was a fairly innocent activity. "Very well. I can take a little time this morning, but I'll have to make up for it this afternoon."

Nikola gave her a pleased smile and they walked through the hallways next to each other. He opened the door to the "outside" area for her, and they started a tour of the flower beds. Helen kept her attention on the flowers, commenting on the various species, and making sure her hand wasn't available for holding yet. She wanted this to go slowly.

When they were well away from the building, Nikola stepped in front of her, looked deep into her eyes, and moved in. Helen put up her hand between them to stop the kiss he was trying for. He took her hand in his.

"Nikola, we don't know each other very well. Your memory . . ."

"Isn't as bad as you think. I know there's a lot I don't remember, but I remember the past few days, how kind you have been to me, how you took care of me when I couldn't do it myself. And I have flashes of memories of Oxford- is that right, Oxford?"

At her nod, he continued. "I remember sitting next to you in class, and dinner at your home with some other men. You were kind to me then, too, including me in things when no one else did. You're a wonderful person, beautiful inside as well as outside. I should have said that in my poem, but I didn't think of it when I was writing it."

Helen took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He was starting to get to her, making her love him all over again, and she couldn't let that happen, at least not yet.

"Nikola, I do care for you, but this is moving a little too fast. In a few days our relationship will have a great deal more depth as you remember more of our past together. I do love you, but can you wait just a few days, please?"

"I love you too, why do we have to wait?" Nikola sounded peevish.

"Because I asked you to. Because I need a little more time." _Because I feel like I'm robbing the cradle._

Nikola dropped her hand and took a step back. His head was lowered, and she could see how disappointed he was.

"That's all anybody ever says to me, 'just wait'. How long do I have to wait?"

"A few days, a week at the most." _At least you'll be an adult by then._

Nikola's head came up suddenly, and Helen could see he had an idea. "What about babysitting Angelina? Haven't I waited long enough for that?"

Helen brightened at that suggestion; perhaps she could throw him a bone of sorts. "Let's go talk to . . . Erika and see." Henry tended to be overprotective, but Erika was sensible and if she agreed, Henry would go along with it.

They walked over to the Abnormal housing building. Erika was back working half days as head of electronic security for the dangerous Abnormals. Helen led the way to her office. Her door was open, and Helen went in followed by a hopeful Nikola.

"Erika, it's good to see you back at work. How are you feeling?" Helen asked.

The slender HAP woman looked tired. She said "I'm fine, although I do miss sleeping."

"Angelina is still keeping you up?"

"She certainly is. I'm sure she's going to grow up to either be an opera singer or win a hog-calling contest" Erika joked.

Nikola saw his opening. "I usually stay up very late. I could stay up a little later and watch her for you until maybe 6:00 a.m."

Erika looked at Helen hopefully. "Do you think he could?"

"I'm quite sure of it. Just give him specific instructions on feeding, changing, and such."

"How much would you want?" Erika asked Nikola cautiously.

Nikola looked confused, so Helen answered for him. "He doesn't want to be paid; he just wants to spend time with Angelina."

Erika looked surprised, but her surprise quickly turned to joy. "That's wonderful, thank you so much Nikola. Come around about quarter to ten tonight, and I'll show you everything."

"Okay, quarter to ten, I'll be knocking on your door."

As Helen and Nikola walked back to the Sanctuary main building, Nikola said "Thank you Helen. See, I knew you were a good person. May I give you a 'thank you' kiss?"

Helen shook her head. "You may give me a 'thank you' handshake, if you really need to."

Nikola stopped and put out his hand and she took it, but he didn't shake her hand. He bowed over it and kissed the air just above it, as had been proper a very long time ago. Helen had to smile at the old-fashioned courtesy, and she gave his hand a little squeeze as he released hers.

After that, they dawdled on the way back. Helen was in no hurry, and the silence between them felt comfortable, like it used to be. Eventually she asked him "What are you going to do today, Nikola?"

"I don't know, do you have anything you need me to do, at least up until 9:45 tonight?"

On impulse she said "Why don't we have dinner together?"

"I'd like that, but not too late. My suite, seven?"

"Seven, but my suite."

"I look forward to it, beautiful Lady."

"As do I, gentle Sir."

She let him take her hand and hold it on the way back to the building, Helen reassuring herself that handholding was a very innocent romantic activity. That lasted about five minutes before Nikola squirmed his hand loose, and then looked at his damp hand as if he could see the germs crawling on it. Helen pulled one of his handkerchiefs out of her pocket and handed it to him. He wiped his hand thoroughly, and then offered her the soggy handkerchief back.

Helen said "Keep it, it's yours anyway."

"If it's mine, why did you have it in your pocket?"

"Let's just say I had a feeling it might come in handy."

Nikola gave her a thoughtful look, but didn't comment further. When they parted Helen went back to her office for a few hours. She would have to quit working a little early to set up their dinner so she needed to accomplish as much as possible in the time she had.

With his new-found ability to speak and read English, Nikola headed for the Sanctuary library by way of the wine cellar. He wanted to read some poetry- perhaps something about wooing a woman; he could use some pointers. And maybe find a book about Abnormals so he would have something to talk about over dinner that would interest Helen.

Scrubbed, polished, dressed in a black silk suit, and bearing a small vase of flowers from the gardens, Nikola knocked on Helen's door precisely at seven. She answered quickly. Nikola was a little disappointed she wasn't wearing some sort of ball gown, but she had put on a dark blue cocktail dress that brought out the blue of her eyes. In her heels, they were of equal height and he stood staring into her eyes before she broke eye contact by looking down at the flowers in his hand.

"Are those for me?"

"Oh, uh, yes, red and white roses. You said you liked them when we were in the garden and there was something about them . . ."

_The two together means '"unity", the white means "I am worthy of you" and the red means "pure and lovely". I wonder if he chose them by accident, or his subconscious remembered the Language of Flowers? _ Helen smiled and took the vase.

"They're lovely; we'll use them for a centerpiece. Come in Nikola, don't stand in the doorway."

She led the way into her sitting room where she had set up a small table with a white tablecloth. Her place had a full place setting of dishes; Nikola's had a series of wine glasses. Helen served herself a tossed salad, and Nikola a Slovenian Sauvignon, hoping it would be familiar to him. For the main course she had blackened salmon, brown rice, and steamed vegetables, and served Nikola a French Bordeaux with his plasma and medication. For dessert she had melon balls and he had a Portuguese Madeira.

Nikola talked about Asian Abnormals; Helen recognized the book he had gotten his information from, and helped him maintain the conversation by telling stories of her encounters with some of the creatures he had read about. After dinner they moved to the couch with a couple of sherries.

Nikola stretched, and put his right arm along the back of the couch behind her. Helen kept herself from laughing at the adolescent move. His hand slid to her shoulder, and she leaned toward him and said in a low voice "It's 9:30, and you need to change clothes before you babysit Angelina."

"Oh!" Nikola said and jumped up to his feet with the sherry glass still in his left hand. He started to put it down on the table, remembered the coaster requirement and nearly dropped the glass. Helen took it from him.

"Thanks. Can I see you tomorrow?"

"Nikola, we live next door to each other, we'll see each other every day."

"That's not what I meant, I mean, can we, you know . . ."

"I won't know how much time I can spend with you until I see what my workload is in the morning. If you're going to stay up until 6:00 a.m. you'll likely sleep quite late. Let's wait until then to make any plans, all right?"

Nikola nodded and started backing up, almost falling over a chair behind him. He hesitated, and then said "Well, good night then. I'll see you in the morning."

"Good night, Nikola. Take good care of Angelina."

Nikola nodded some more, and finally turned and went through the adjoining door into his suite. He quickly changed into a sturdier pair of tan slacks, tan vest, and white shirt, and hurried to knock on the Foss' door at 9:45.

Henry answered the door, but didn't open it very far. "Hey Nikola, it's kind of late for a social call."

From behind him, Erika said "Henry, let Nikola in. I told you he's going to babysit for us tonight."

Henry reluctantly stepped back and Nikola came in. Henry said "I don't think this is a very good idea, Erika."

"Henry, we need to get some sleep. Helen said it would be fine."

"Yeah, but . . ."

"Do you trust Helen?"

"Yeah, but . . ."

"Do you want a good night's sleep?"

"Yeah, but . . ."

"Do you want me to be very, very angry as well as sleep deprived?"

"No, definitely not." Henry shook his head for emphasis.

Erika smiled, and gave him a peck on the cheek. "Then let me show Nikola what he needs to know. Nikola, come with me."

Nikola followed Erika and she showed him Angelina's routine. Angelina was in her crib, dozing. Erika turned the light off so only the night light was on, and went to her own bedroom and closed the door behind her. Nikola sat down in the rocker. In a little while, the light in Henry and Erika's bedroom went off and everything became quiet. Angelina woke up and started fussing.

Nikola picked her up and sat back down in the rocker. He liked having her warm, living weight in his arms, and the way she looked up at him in complete trust and innocence. He rocked her gently and her eyes closed again.

/

The Arrendulics entered the Hollow Earth tunnels as the daylight was fading. A short distance in they found the first sensor, just as Reena had said. It was only a simple laser beam about a meter off of the ground that sent a notice to Henry's security system and activated a camera when the beam was broken. The Arrendulics just slithered under it and proceeded down the tunnel.

They were still several hours from the Sanctuary. The map was clear, but it was still a long trek and they moved quickly through the labyrinth. Two hours later, they halted in a seemingly ordinary stretch of tunnel and began searching for a hidden door. Even knowing it was there, it still took the eleven of them twenty minutes to find it and trigger the hidden catch.

As the door swung open, two of the Arrendulics grabbed it and halted it. If it had opened fully, another signal would have been sent to Sanctuary security. But the opening was wide enough for them to slip through, the last one pulling the door shut behind him.

Now they were within the Sanctuary's tunnels, and they needed care more than speed. They moved cautiously, until they came to the first gate. It wasn't a door as such, but just an opening they had to pass through while being scanned. If the scanner detected an unusual energy signature, it would set off an alarm and drop a barrier in front of them.

But Reena and Bobby had prepared them for this as well. The Arrendulics carried no energy weapons or anything that would set off the scanner other than their own life energy. Each of them had a small device they turned on that adjusted their life energy just a little for the scanner, and the scanner read them as human. They passed through without setting off any alarms.

A short distance further on, they came to the first checkpoint that required them to input a code. The codes changed periodically, and were not in any of the computer files that Bobby and Reena could access, so they had rigged up the remote control to bypass the system and just open all three checkpoints. But the Arrendulics would have to hurry to get through all three before the system reset.

Kok had the device, and got everyone lined up at the checkpoint. He pushed the button, the checkpoint opened, and the eleven of them threw themselves forward, all of them flat down on the ground. Their snake-like motion propelled them far faster than any human could run, especially over the roughly two kilometer distance to the third checkpoint.

They made it with time to spare. Dod had them move a little way past the sensor, and then rest, drink water, and eat a light snack. A quarter hour later, they were ready for the assault.

A/N: Thank you Anthro and Nayukhuut for your reviews/comments on Chapter 13. I hope you liked this one!


	15. Chapter 15 Battle

A/N: An upfront warning: this chapter gets a bit gory.

Henry woke to a light flashing on his face. He opened his eyes a slit and saw that there was a yellow light pulsing on his computer. The cavern sensors had detected something unusual.

Their main purpose was to give an alert just in case an Abnormal escaped during the night. The computer monitoring the sensor input could usually differentiate between Sanctuary residents and dangerous Abnormals, but occasionally erred if several people or a visitor just went out for a walk or something; hence the alert rather than an alarm.

Henry considered ignoring it. He had been sleeping peacefully for hours for the first time in weeks. He could hear Erika's steady, slow breathing next to him. Well, checking it would only take a few seconds, and it was his job after all.

He got up and ran the video of whatever set off the alert, expecting to just see someone out enjoying the night blooming jasmine. Instead he saw a number of lizard-like creatures moving quickly through the gardens, as of . . . sixty-three seconds ago. He sent the video and an alarm to Helen and Will. Just because he didn't know who they were, didn't mean Helen or Will didn't, and there wasn't any point in waking the whole Sanctuary if they were invited guests. In fact, they probably were invited since they had passed all the checkpoints without triggering an alarm, and he hadn't seen them carrying any guns or large weapons. Funny he hadn't heard about them visiting, though.

Just to be on the safe side, it wouldn't hurt to have a weapon in hand; he would pick up something powerful in the armory and maybe an extra in case Helen or Will needed one too. If the snaky lizards were friendly, he could always put them back. Henry quickly put on pants over his pajamas, shoved his feet into shoes, and quietly closed the bedroom door behind him.

In the hall, he peeked into Angelina's nursery. The small lamp was on, and Nikola had just finished changing her. Nikola turned around and looked at Henry, who just gave him a small wave and got a nod in return.

"Is there something wrong?" Nikola asked quietly.

"Not sure. Keep an eye on things here, okay?"

"Okay".

Henry could tell Nikola was curious, but he didn't want to take the time to explain. He trotted down the stairs and through the halls to the armory. He came around the last corner and skidded to a halt. One of the creatures was standing in front of the door.

They saw each other at the same time, and if Henry hadn't been sure before whether the creatures were friends or foes, he was quickly informed by two throwing stars coming at him at the same time as he changed to his HAP form. The change fairly well destroyed his clothes, but likely saved his life.

One throwing star just nicked his ribs where his chest had been, and the other embedded itself painfully in his thigh muscle, just inches from an extremely important part of his anatomy. Henry roared and leapt at the creature, just as the general alarm went off.

It had a knife in its hand, but that wasn't the most dangerous part; it had also unhinged its lower jaw and opened its mouth far wider than it should have been able to. Snake-like fangs dropped down from where they had been folded against the roof of its mouth and it struck at Henry has he crashed into it.

They went down together, and the creature drove its fangs deep into the back of Henry's left shoulder, while he went for the thing's neck and restrained its knife hand. Henry found he was stronger than the creature and was able to pry its head away, getting its fangs out and making sure it couldn't bite him again. He twisted the knife out of the thing's hand.

The bite started to burn and hurt, but Henry ignored it. He got both hands on the creature's head while it clawed at him; but his hairy hide was impervious to the thing's short claws. Henry sharply twisted the creature's head, and broke its neck. It went limp.

Henry released it cautiously, but it was dead. He pulled the throwing star out of his leg; it hurt, but the bleeding was minimal. The pain from bite on his shoulder, however, was spreading and he was starting to feel weak.

He knew there was more than one of these things in the Sanctuary, and Henry didn't want to get that close to another one if he could help it, so he input the door code to the armory and got the largest gun he could handle with one hand; his left arm was going numb, not a good sign, but there was no time to deal with that now.

/

Helen woke to the sound of her computer beeping and flashing. She went to it and saw Henry had sent an alarm and a video; it only took a few seconds of watching the video to recognize the creatures in the Sanctuary gardens. Arrendulics were a North African species, what were a group of them doing here?

Helen knew they could be dangerous, their bite was poisonous, and they had definitely not looked friendly as they ran and slithered through the garden. The harnesses they wore held knives and other objects she didn't take time to study. She hit the general alarm, and quickly dressed. Just as she finished, she heard a loud crash; the door to her sitting room had been broken in. She rolled over her bed and pulled her little, flat automatic out from beneath her pillow.

An Arrendulic came into her bedroom, and she fired three shots, hitting it twice in the chest and once in the head. The bullets ricocheted off, doing little more than making the creature pause and perhaps bruising it a bit beneath its scales. It smiled, and dropped its jaw showing its fangs as it came at her.

Helen reached into her nightstand drawer and pulled out a forty-five. She repeated the pattern, two to the chest and one to the head, and this time the Arrendulic looked very surprised as the bullets penetrated and it dropped to the floor, dead.

She grabbed a handful of bullets from the drawer and reloaded as she went out into her sitting room. She checked through the adjoining door to Nikola's suite, but although the outer door was broken like hers, she found both the sitting room and bedroom empty. She cautiously went out into the hall, looking and listening for signs of more of the creatures. She had counted eleven on the video; ten to go.

/

Big Guy's rooms were on the first floor, not far from one of the entrances to the gardens. Although he had lived among humans for many years, the senses that kept his kind alive and well in the wild hadn't been dulled. Even asleep, the unfamiliar sounds in the hallway outside his door woke him and roused his sense of alarm. He stood and listened intently.

The rasping noise had passed by without stopping, but he needed to see what had made it. That way, even if it was a harmless creature, next time he would know what it was and how to react. He moved quickly to the door, opened it, and peered out.

He saw a long, slithery tail going around a corner. That didn't gibe with any non-dangerous Abnormal he knew; he took off in pursuit. Then the alarm went off, and he knew the creature, whatever it was, wasn't supposed to be wandering the halls. He started to run.

Big Guy entered a long straight hall and saw it ahead of him. It turned and saw him, but after only a brief hesitation, it ignored him and went on at a faster pace. Biggie was _not_ going to let the thing get away from him.

He caught it, and grabbed its tail with one hand, then got it with the second hand too. It turned and seemed more exasperated than alarmed, pulled out a knife and slashed at Big Guy's arm. Big Guy jerked as hard as he could on the tail, pulling the creature off of its feet.

It wasn't the least bit disconcerted; it just started to slither on its belly, turning easily around again. To Big Guy's surprise, it spoke.

"Let go of me, you oaf. I'm trying to help you, you big whatever-you-are. We're here to free all the Abnormals and kill those who have imprisoned you."

"I'm not a prisoner, and you're not going to kill anyone. You surrender now."

"I'm not surrendering to a mound of hair, let go of me." It jerked its tail trying to free itself.

Big Guy pulled, putting his whole body into it, and whipped the creature through the air past him. It landed hard, its body in a straight line; the knife clattered down the hall. It seemed dazed, shook its head a little, then started to slither back toward him again.

Big Guy did it again, only this time he aimed at a wall. The creature's head and upper body slammed into it, and it fell to the carpeting and didn't move, although it was still breathing. Big Guy grunted a couple of times, then slung the tail over his shoulder and started to trudge down the hall, dragging the stunned creature behind him. He knew where there was a nice, empty plexiluminum cage that was just the right size for an overgrown snake.

/

Will woke to the unfamiliar sound of beeping. What the heck was that? Then he saw the flashing light on his computer. He went over and poked at it; no one had told him about this, what did it mean? An alert of some kind surely, but . . .

He got the video to come up and watched a group of unfamiliar lizard-snake creatures moving swiftly through the gardens. Whatever they were, this couldn't be good. He grabbed his pants and started to dress as the general alarm went off. He dressed faster.

He went out into the hall, and saw one of the creatures was no more than forty feet from him. It _smiled_ and said "Target number four; how nice", and came at him. It was too late to retreat, so Will ran the other way.

Henry came limping around a corner just as Will reached it; Will recognized him, even in HAP form, and just managed to not crash into him. Will slewed around behind him when he saw Henry was armed. Then he saw the blood on Henry's back, and realized he was moving very slowly, the gun wavering as Henry tried to aim it at the creature that was coming at an alarming speed.

Will leapt in front of Henry, grabbed the gun from him and fired when the creature was only a few feet away. He jerked the trigger, and missed, but he kept firing and enough bullets hit the target to drop the thing dead at their feet.

"Oh good" said Henry, as he leaned against the wall and started to slide down it. Will grabbed him and held him up.

"What happened to you?"

"It was a different one, but don't worry, it's dead too. It bit me, I think they're poisonous. Can I go lie down now?" Henry said somewhat disjointedly.

"Not yet, you need to go to the infirmary. Come on." Will got a shoulder under Henry's arm, and started helping him down the hall. Then he realized he didn't know how to treat a lizard-snake thing bite, so he stopped and propped Henry up against the wall while he called Helen.

She answered on the first ring and Will said "Henry's been bitten by some lizard-snake thing, and he thinks the bite is poisonous. We're heading toward the infirmary, meet us there."

"It's an Arrendulic, the poison is treatable, and I'm on my way. Did you kill it?"

"Yeah, we got it and Henry said he got another one earlier."

"That makes three, there were eleven in the video; keep your eyes open."

"Will do."

Helen had just hung up when her cell rang again. It was Declan who said "We have a mess over here. Some snake-like beings got in and released a number of the dangerous Abnormal species. I've seen seven different types in the halls so far, including the nubbins and those four-eyed black cats with the bifurcated tails. Can you send help?"

"Not at the moment, we have those creatures here too, they're Arrendulics, and they're attacking us. Do you have them neutralized?"

"Actually the species they released did that for us. Those black cats took care of two of them as well as some of the nubbins, I'm afraid, and one Arrendulic was so mauled we're not sure yet what got him. The two of them that released the nubbins were rolling around on the floor trying to mate; they're in custody."

"Good, I'll send you help when I can." Helen hung up and ran for the infirmary. That made eight, three to go. She reached the infirmary just as Will helped Henry on to a table. Helen prepared an injection, then turned to Henry and said "Change back, this will be more effective in your human form."

Henry hesitated; Will realized why, and tossed a sheet over the lower half of his body; Henry was still a little shy about his nudity when he changed form. Henry changed, and Helen injected him. Then she examined and cleaned both his wounds, and set up an IV drip with more of the antivenin.

"You'll be fine Henry, just rest. I'll need to keep you here, probably until tomorrow."

Henry's eyes were starting to close but he said "Okay, but can you check on Erika and Angelina and make sure they're all right?"

"Of course, I'll do that now. Will, can you stay with Henry for a little while?"

"Absolutely, be glad to."

Helen started back toward the residency hall, keeping her gun handy. She ran into Big Guy, who fell in beside her and told her about his encounter with the reptilian creature, and how he had cracked it like a whip, stunned it, and locked it up.

"Good job. That leaves two unaccounted for, but I need you to help Declan. The Arrendulics have released quite a few Abnormals in the other building, and he's going to need all the help he can get recapturing everything."

"But if there are still two loose . . ."

"We can handle it. Right now your experience with Abnormals makes you more valuable there than here."

Biggie grunted a couple of times, but agreed, and went to help Declan.

When Helen approached the Foss's suite, she started to smell something that made her heart drop; blood, feces, and death. The outer door had been broken in like hers had been, and she stepped into the doorway with her gun ready.

The sitting room was an abattoir. Blood and _fluids_ were smeared and spattered everywhere, even on the ceiling. The furniture was destroyed, the chairs and couch turned over and ripped and stained, tables smashed, bookcases lying face down on their contents. There were body parts among the wreckage, internal organs, a scaled hand . . .

Helen stopped looking too closely. At least one of the Arrendulics was accounted for here, perhaps both, but it was the cost that concerned her.

Helen lowered her gun and called "Erika? Are you here? Nikola?"

There was a scraping sound from the bedroom, as if something heavy was being moved, then the door opened slowly. Erika came out, in HAP form, ready to fight.

Helen said calmly "It's over, are you all right? Are Angelina and Nikola with you?"

When Erika saw that it was just Helen, she changed to human form and said "Angelina is safe on our bed. Is Henry all right?"

"He was bitten, but he'll be fine. He's in the infirmary. What about Nikola?"

Erika went back in the bedroom and Helen followed her, crossing the sitting room carefully and putting away her gun. In the bedroom, Erika slipped a loose dress over her head and put on shoes. Angelina lay in the middle of the bed, waving her arms a bit, seemingly unfazed by what had happened in the next room. The heavy wardrobe was out of its usual place and sitting next to the door.

"Erika, where is Nikola?"

Erika turned to face Helen. "I'm sorry. When the alarm went off, he gave me Angelina and told me to lock myself in the bedroom. I offered to help, but he insisted, he said Angelina needed her mother, and that he would make sure we were safe. He made me promise not to come out until I heard a voice I recognized. I . . . I heard the fight. Angelina could hear it too; she was so distressed I sang to her to cover the sound."

Helen looked back at the sitting room. "You mean he's . . ." She gestured toward the blood-soaked room.

Erika nodded. "I'm so sorry."

Helen walked slowly back into the scene of what must have been a terrible fight. If Nikola had been torn apart, even he wouldn't have survived. But someone had to still be in one piece; the three of them couldn't have all been torn to pieces. So somewhere in the room there was either an Arrendulic, or Nikola, possibly alive. There had been no bloody footprints in the hall, no one had left.

Erika spoke from behind her. "Helen, I need to get Angelina away from this."

"Go to Henry. Will is with him, send him up, quickly please. I want him here for backup in case there's a surviving Arrendulic in this room."

"You think there could be . . ."

"Please go, now." Helen spoke more sharply than she intended. She didn't really blame Erika for letting Nikola fight for her. Erika had stood as the last defense for her child if any of the Arrendulics got past Nikola. Helen understood what it was to be a mother, and willing to sacrifice anything to protect one's child; even a very young, idealistic friend. But oh, Nikola . . .

Erika flipped a corner of Angelina's blanket over her face so the baby couldn't see anything and to mute the smell, and hurried across the sitting room and out the doorway. Helen stood very still, and listened for movement, breathing, anything.

It was utterly quiet. Helen couldn't wait for Will, Nikola was in this room somewhere and she had to find him. She walked slowly around the room, looking for any space big enough for a person. Under the overturned couch? She flipped it up; there was about half an Arrendulic underneath, headless, gutted, missing limbs . . . she looked away.

Where else? The shattered desk rested on a mound. She picked up the largest pieces and put them aside, until she could see more Arrendulic; at least part of a torso that duplicated part of the one under the couch, so that accounted for both the remaining Arrendulics.

It also meant Nikola had won the fight. So there was a chance he was alive, here somewhere, if she could only find him. Was he hiding, or perhaps healing?

"Nikola? Can you hear me? It's over Nikola, you're safe, Erika and Angelina are safe. Please Nikola, where are you?"

There was a tiny sound, and one of the bookcases shifted. Gravity or Nikola? Helen went to it; empty it wasn't that heavy, and she stood it up against the wall. The remaining books fell out as she lifted it, and the entire pile they fell on shifted too, revealing blood-soaked clothing and Nikola.

He didn't move though, as Helen quickly shoved books off of him. He was curled up in a fetal position, eyes shut. With all the blood she couldn't tell how badly he was injured, but he was still in vampire form and she could see the blood and _lumps_ dried to his claws, in his hair, all over him in fact. His clothes were shredded too; he hadn't dismembered the Arrendulics without paying a price. Although she didn't understand at all why he had torn them apart like that; Nikola was a civilized man, or teenager, or whatever. And what was he doing with a bookcase on top of him if he had won the fight?

She reached out to him, and hesitated. There wasn't a clean spot on him, so she just ignored how messy she was going to get and touched his shoulder gently.

"Nikola?"

He didn't respond. She heard Will arrive, and gag at the sight and smell. He stepped back out into the hall for a moment, gathered himself, and came back in. Helen pretended she had just noticed him.

"Will, help me with Nikola. We need to get him cleaned up, there's too much mess for me to see how badly he's hurt."

"What happened?" Will asked as he helped her lift the vampire.

"I don't know any more than you do, but we'll deal with it later."

Together they got Nikola into the Foss' shower. Helen turned the water on warm, then sent Will for a gurney while she started wiping blood and bits of Arrendulic off of Nikola. His clothes were glued to him by dried blood, and it took her quite a while to get them off and for the water sluicing over him to stop running various shades of red and pink. It left quite a mess in the shower, but that hardly mattered compared to the clean-up job needed in the sitting room.

She was soaked too by the time she finished and turned off the water. She could hear Will working to clear a path for the gurney, and she had Nikola wrapped in towels by the time he made it to the bathroom.

As they got Nikola on the gurney, Will asked "How is he?"

"Not good. He's been bitten five times, but from the dark area around three of the bites, I think two are dry bites. But that means it's likely they drained their poison sacs into him completely."

As they trundled the gurney through the bloody sitting room, Will asked quietly "Are you sure he's alive? He doesn't seem to be breathing."

"He's not, nor is his heart beating, and no I'm not sure!" Helen replied, her voice getting louder and sharper.

Will wisely kept his mouth shut the rest of the way to the infirmary. Once there, Helen took charge of Nikola so he went to join Henry and his little family.

She used a suction device on all ten fang punctures to remove at least some of the venom, and cleaned all of Nikola's wounds. The fight had only occurred less than an hour ago, but there had been almost no healing, which was decidedly not normal. The small wounds should surely have closed by now, shouldn't they? Helen found herself unsure; she should know how long Nikola took to heal, she did know how long Nikola took to heal, but not when he had been poisoned. Did the poison have anything to do with the extreme violence in the sitting room?

She injected small amounts of antivenin near each of the bites. If . . . when, Nikola's heart started to beat and his blood to circulate, the antivenin would spread with the remaining venom in his body.

She found herself in the situation of not knowing what else to do, unusual for her. She covered him with a warm blanket, made him as comfortable as possible, although there was really no logical reason to do so; he wasn't feeling anything in his current state. She wondered if she was treating a corpse, but banished the thought from her mind. He was just in vampire healing mode, that was all, and it had been slowed by the poison in his system. That had to be the case, because otherwise . . .

She could hear Will, Henry, and Erika talking in low voices; happy voices, and she wanted to shout at them to shut up, but she knew that was irrational. They were focused on Henry right now, and the fact he was going to be fine, and they were relieved Erika and Angelina were safe. They weren't thinking about Nikola, and if they were, they undoubtedly just assumed he would be fine. They'd seen him injured before, sometimes severely, and he always just bounced back in a few hours.

Well, perhaps they were right. Perhaps in a few hours Nikola would be awake and trying to get out of bed long before he should, just as usual. Helen sat by her still vampire and prayed they were right.

A/N: Thank you Saphyr88, Lorienleaf, Anthro, Nayukhuut, and ElphieRiaAddams for your reviews/comments. Support from my readers is what keeps me writing.


	16. Chapter 16 Prisoners

Reena watched the feeds from her six cameras. Two went with the Arrendulics releasing the captive Abnormals, four with those who would kill the Sanctuary jailors.

As she watched the Arrendulics releasing various creatures, she quickly realized something was wrong. One camera showed the furry little nubbins being released, and then just a close-up of another Arrendulic with the background rolling around. Then she lost the video feed; perhaps the camera broke.

She saw some odd, floating, nearly transparent creatures with long, wispy tendrils that did not want to come out of their habitat, but an Arrendulic chivvied them out, where they sank nearly to the ground. Some other cute, but exuberant creatures that looked like puppies with opposable thumbs on their paws entered the picture. They leaped among the floating creatures and started playing and batting them around. But every time they touched the tendrils, they jumped away, obviously in pain. The camera moved on.

The Arrendulics let two large black four-eyed cats out, and she saw them attack one of the Arrendulics almost immediately; the one with the camera ran, and she just got jiggling pictures of the hall. When it looked back, she saw the cats killing nubbins, and then re-focusing on the Arrendulic. More jiggling hall pictures but eventually she saw the floor, the ceiling, and lastly close-ups of the cats biting and clawing, and then the picture went out.

Reena was stunned. That wasn't what she intended, not at all. She realized with a sinking feeling that she hadn't really thought it through. The Arrendulics should have been more careful; they should have released harmless species first, one at a time, and then the more dangerous ones when the others had left. And she hadn't considered species that needed specific environmental conditions to live; she hadn't meant for any of the imprisoned Abnormals to die. But she hadn't given any instructions except to open the cages, and that was exactly what the Arrendulics did.

And the attacks on the Sanctuary personnel weren't going well, either. One Arrendulic had confronted Helen Magnus, and Reena had laughed at her attempt to kill it with a little automatic. But the woman somehow produced a big pistol, and Reena's view was suddenly of the ceiling, mostly obstructed by blood.

Another Arrendulic almost got Will Zimmerman, but an armed HAP came to his rescue, and that Arrendulic went down too. Her view of the Arrendulic's encounter with Big Guy made her want to shout at the stupid snake, but she had only one-way visual communication, and he couldn't hear her telling him to kill the sasquatch. She hadn't explained the difference between Abnormals that needed to be freed and those that would fight for the Sanctuary. Then the picture went crazy, the camera moving so fast it really couldn't focus, and then it went dead too.

Only one camera showed anything like she had imagined. Two Arrendulics had Tesla trapped in a room, and she expected they would make short work of him. But the fight was confused, the camera clipped to one of the Arrendulic's harness showing only glimpses of what was happening. She saw one Arrendulic sink its fangs into Tesla and cheered, but the vampire threw it off and slashed it viciously. The one with the camera moved in, and the tumbling movements made it too hard to tell who was winning.

Eventually, the camera showed Tesla covered in blood and gore tossing aside something that looked like intestines, a great deal of blood, and then the picture turned black.

Her whole plan, all the money she had paid, had been for nothing. She hadn't seen one of the hated Sanctuary people die, and she had inadvertently killed Abnormals she thought she was going to save.

The only bright spot had been the absolute savagery with which Tesla had fought. Perhaps Dr. Petrocelli had made a breakthrough there. With a little luck, Tesla may have just kept on killing after he finished the Arrendulics, and even now there could be bodies scattered around the Sanctuary. How many might he have killed before they found a way to stop him?

In any case, it was over and they had failed. Reena was sure that the rigged checkpoints that had allowed access to the Sanctuary would be discovered within a few hours, and they wouldn't have any way to mount another attack. Time for her, Bobby, and Molly to go home.

/

It was late and the infirmary was quiet. Will had gone to help recapture the last of the loose Abnormals in the other building, Henry was asleep, and Erika had taken Angelina to a guest room for the night.

Nikola's body jerked, startling Helen. She had been half asleep herself, but now she was wide awake and stood over him. He jerked again, and started gasping for air. Helen found his pulse; it was racing, but there, finally.

"Nikola! Nikola, can you hear me?"

Gradually, his breathing and heart rate slowed, but he didn't open his eyes. He was alive, and that was what mattered. She checked his injuries; those not close to one of the venomous bites were nearly healed. The three sets of fang punctures where venom had been injected were not, and were oozing blood and fluid.

Helen hooked up an IV with more of the antivenin, and bandaged the open wounds, smiling the whole time. Nikola was alive, and a live vampire was almost impossible to kill. She was sure he would be all right, it would just take time, and he could have as much as he needed. She didn't believe the venom would interfere with his brain re-build, so if he was out for a day or two, he would likely be an adult when he woke up.

The only unusual thing was that his eyes were still solid black, and his fangs and claws were still out. Helen wasn't overly worried about it though, Nikola had gotten used to staying in vampire mode when they visited the vampire society. He would return to human eventually.

She stayed with him through the night, but he remained unconscious. Early the next morning, Will stopped by.

"Hey, how's he doing?"

"He's alive and healing. How much damage did the Arrendulics do?"

"It's not good, but it could have been worse. We lost five nubbins, and fourteen fairy fish, and half the monkuppies are sick from fairy fish stings. All the Abnormals are back in their environments, except we're missing one monkuppy. Oh, and one of the black cats was bitten by an Arrendulic, but it will recover."

"How many of the adult fairy fish survived?"

"Five of the seven, but only one mated pair."

"That will set back our timetable to reintroduce them into the desert by two or three years. Anything from the captives?"

"Yep, one of them is quite talkative. Apparently they were just hired for the job, and since they failed and most were killed, he said the contract is broken so he owes no loyalty to those who hired them. Guess who hired them?"

Helen just shook her head; the Sanctuary had a long list of enemies. "Our old friend Querina, and a brother and sister named Bobby and Molly."

"I've had just about enough of that group" Helen said angrily. "Do we have any way of finding them? Do the Arrendulics know where they are?"

"Unfortunately, no. They met at a rented house, and the final transaction was supposed to be a bank transfer when the job was completed. But we do have their last name, Bentley, and we have these." Will held up one of the little cameras.

"Can Henry trace the signal?"

"No, it's just a general broadcast on an odd frequency. But not too many people buy six of these at once, and having the name they were likely bought under, Henry thinks he may be able to track down the purchase."

"Excellent. You look exhausted, get something to eat and then get some rest."

"You'll be able to handle things? You didn't get any sleep last night either."

"No, but Henry got quite a bit so I'll have him sit down here with Nikola and continue his search. He can call me if he finds anything or Nikola wakes up, and sitting here ensures Henry doesn't overexert himself, he's still recovering too. I'll be in my office; when you're back bright-eyed and bushy-tailed I'll catch a nap."

"Sounds like a plan. I'll send Henry down."

Five hours later, Henry and Will came to Helen's office. She quirked an eyebrow at Henry.

"Big Guy is sitting with him. He's still just lying there breathing. I came to tell you what I found on the cameras."

"And that is . . ."

"I've got them. They actually ordered the cameras on-line, and I've got the shipping address" Henry said gleefully. He set his laptop down on her desk so they all could see the screen.

"See? Robert Bentley bought six cameras and a multi-screen receiving unit less than a month ago. And there's the address."

"Excellent work, Henry. Now the only question is what do we do about it?"

Will said "What do you mean, we go get 'em don't we?"

"Are you suggesting a nighttime raid and we shoot them in their beds?"

"Uh, no. We could grab them and turn them over to the police."

Helen smiled and asked sweetly "And you'll be the one to explain our underground Sanctuary, Abnormals, and Arrendulics to the judge? Oh, and let's not forget publicly explaining our security system as well."

Will shook his head, realizing that wouldn't work. Henry interrupted "Uh, about the security system. I sent Jun and Katya down the tunnel I figured the Arrendulics came down. They found a hidden control box in a little side tunnel that opens all three checkpoints when triggered by remote control."

"Good. Likely Reena or Jenna's friend Bobby installed it" Helen said. "Did they disable it?"

"Ripped it right off the wall. They also found a skeleton way back in the cave. Are we missing anyone?"

"Not that was ever reported to me, but there were a lot of people working down here to build all this. I'll make enquiries."

Will tried another suggestion. "We could capture them and imprison them here."

"I don't really want to become a jailor, do you?" Helen replied. Will sighed and shook his head again.

Looking back and forth at the two of them, Henry interjected "There's got to be something we can do. We can't just let them keep taking potshots at us."

Helen said "I agree. Will, why don't you call your friends at SCIU and tell them there are three Abnormals living at that address?"

"You'd give them to SCIU? Well, I guess if anyone deserves that, they do. But I am not friends with anyone still at SCIU."

"I know, but they may not know that. SCIU can round up our three attackers, and owe you a favor on top of it." Helen was still smiling, but with just a glint of malice in her eyes.

Will matched her smile. "I'll do that. And I'll be just a little reluctant so they can talk me into it and owe me big time."

"Good. I'm going to go take a nap. Henry, please go back and sit with Nikola."

"Actually, I kind of feel like taking a nap myself. Can Biggie watch him for a while longer?"

"Yes, of course, if you're tired. How are Erika and Angelina?"

"Neither is sleeping well, but then Angelina never has, really, except with Erika or Nikola holding her." Henry sounded a little sad, and Helen realized he hadn't included himself in the list of people that could get Angelina to sleep in their arms.

Erika wasn't used to the kind of fighting that Sanctuary personnel sometimes had to do, and Helen expected it would take her some time to adjust. The battle that had taken place in her sitting room had been worse than most; at least she had only heard it rather than watched it or taken part in it. Angelina was too young to interpret the sounds, she was just being Angelina.

"Give it time, Henry. Life intervenes and memories fade. Your apartment is being refurbished, after a few weeks back home things will be comfortable again. And I can assure you it won't be long before you are Angelina's favorite male, at least until she's twelve or fourteen. Then your place will outwardly be taken by some young musician or actor, but you'll always be her Daddy."

Henry gave her a sheepish smile and nodded, then left to get some rest. Will went to place the call to SCIU, and Helen headed back to her suite.

Helen stopped at the Foss' apartment on the way to her own. She was glad to see that the room had been completely stripped. A few salvageable items were stacked in the hall, but outside of that, not even the carpet remained. Walls, ceiling, and floor had been washed, but blood stains remained throughout. Well, at least there was progress being made. A few more days and there would be no trace of the fight.

Helen set her alarm for four hours, expecting Big Guy would call with the news that Nikola was awake, but the alarm woke her with no call. She showered and dressed, picked up some clothes from Nikola's suite, stopped by the kitchen for a late snack, and went back to the infirmary to relieve Big Guy.

Nikola's fangs and claws had receded, and his eyes were back to pale blue. The discoloration around the envenomed punctures had faded, and the wounds were dry. So he was recovering, just more slowly than she was used to.

His breathing and heart rate were normal. She tried pinching his arm, but got no reaction at all. He was either in vampire healing mode, or a coma, and she couldn't tell which. Well, as long as his vital signs remained normal, it really didn't matter; all she could do was wait.

It was very early morning when Nikola's breathing quickened, and his eyes fluttered and opened. Helen was at his side immediately.

"Nikola? How do you feel?"

"Okay" he replied weakly.

"Are you in pain at all?"

"N . . . no. Helen, I couldn't stop."

"Couldn't stop what?"

"I ripped them apart. I couldn't . . . I couldn't stop myself."

"It doesn't matter, they attacked you; you just defended yourself."

Nikola sat up. "No, I didn't. I pulled their insides out, I ripped pieces off of them, and then I looked for someone else to . . . Helen, I would have done that to anyone who walked into the room."

"No, Nikola you . . ."

Nikola's voice rose. "Yes, I would have. Part of me was trying to stop, but I couldn't, so I pulled the bookcase over on myself. That knocked me down, and I just kept telling myself to stay there, to just curl up and stay there, and I was able to do that, but if anyone had come in before . . ."

Helen said patiently "The vampire part of you is new to you right now. It will take a little while, but you'll gain control."

"No, you don't understand." Nikola was sounding panicky. "If Erika had come in with Angelina, or you, or Henry, or anyone, I would have done that to them. I would have!"

"It's over now Nikola, you don't have to . . . "

He grabbed her upper arms and looked her in the eye. "Lock me up. Please, lock me up somewhere I can't hurt anybody. Please."

He sounded desperate. Helen didn't believe he would actually hurt anyone, but Nikola believed it, and he was terrified. Maybe it would be better, just for his peace of mind, to lock him in somewhere until she could convince him he was safe to be around.

"All right, I could lock you in your suite . . ."

"No, I could get right out of there. It has to be somewhere secure, so I can't escape."

"The detention room . . ." Nikola just shook his head.

Helen took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She hated to do this, but if it was what he really wanted, then she would. "I can put you in one of the plexiluminum cells. No iron-based metals, no way to open the door from the inside at all."

Nikola let go of her and nodded vigorously. "Yes, put me in there."

"Naked, or do you want to get dressed first?"

"Oh. Um, could you . . ."

She turned away from him. He was older, but still not back to her Nikola. She waited while he dressed, musing on the absurdity of the situation. He was afraid he was going to attack her, but she was so sure he wouldn't she was standing with her back to him. And then, having trusted him completely, she was going to lock him up; hopefully not for long.

Once he was dressed, she led him to the containment cells. The three Arrendulics were each in a separate cell. Helen wasn't sure what she was going to do with them yet. Nikola stared at them as he and Helen walked past, and she realized that she probably shouldn't have let him see them. It was too late now, so she just walked more quickly. The Arrendulics paid little attention; they didn't know what Nikola had done to their companions.

She took him down a few cells where he wouldn't be able to see or hear them, and opened the door. Nikola went in quickly. The cells were very plain, just a cot, a tiny wooden table with a hard chair, a couple of shelves and pegs for clothes and personal items, and a toilet and sink. The entire cell was visible through the plexiluminum, there was no privacy at all. Well, Nikola wanted it, so there he was.

Nikola just stopped in the middle of the small room, facing away from her. She said "I'll bring you some books in the morning, all right? Are you hungry at all?"

He shook his head, and she left him there. She would bring him his plasma and some wine with the books anyway. After the fight and healing, he would need food, even if he didn't want it yet.

Helen went back to her own suite. There was still time for three or four hours of sleep before she had to be up.

The first thing Helen did when she got to her office in the morning was call Queen Ana. If anyone knew why Nikola had gone wild in the fight, it would be Ana. Helen hoped that it was just a reaction to the poison, or perhaps that Nikola was mentally still under the age when he actually had become a vampire and his mind had no way of controlling his vampire side yet.

But Ana disagreed with both ideas. Some poisons could be dangerous and damaging to a vampire, but most had little effect. Arrendulic poison was harmful, but it would definitely not have caused a rage reaction or caused Nikola to lose control of himself. And even if Nikola's mind wasn't quite all there yet, his body knew exactly what to do and how to do it. His mind could push himself to be faster, stronger, heal more quickly, and the like, but even without that extra drive Nikola would still just be a vampire, not an insane killer.

Helen thanked Ana and said goodbye. The only other explanation for Nikola's rampage was Dr. Petrocelli's conditioning. Ashley had been very strong-willed, but in the end, she hadn't been able to stop herself from attacking and killing people she knew. Only at the last moment before she killed her own mother had she been able to overcome her conditioning for the one moment necessary to send herself into oblivion.

Nikola's conditioning hadn't been completed, and his mental regression had blocked its effects, at least temporarily. But as his mind aged, would the conditioning become stronger, or would it lose its hold? Helen didn't know, and didn't have any way to find out, except to wait and see. Except for the incident with the Arrendulics, Nikola seemed to be his usual, nonaggressive self. Perhaps it was just being attacked that had triggered the extreme violence he had exhibited.

Helen wondered if Nikola was right; did he belong in a containment cell? She wanted her sarcastic, upbeat, brilliant vampire back, and was becoming less sure that he would ever go back to being that man. If he didn't . . .

She put that thought aside. If he really was dangerous, how long could she keep him locked up? Years? Decades? Centuries? How long before he was truly insane from being held in a tiny room for so long?

Only time would tell if Nikola was permanently affected by what Petrocelli had done to him. Meanwhile, Helen was not just going to sit around and wait. She started pulling up on her computer everything she could find on counter-conditioning. But most of what she found related to de-programming people removed from cults. There just wasn't anything related to changing someone programmed to kill, except fiction.

Helen picked up a change of clothes for Nikola, a few books from the library, a bottle of wine and two glasses, and his nutrient-enhanced plasma, and carried it all down to the cells. Even though it was late morning, he was still curled up on the bed, facing away from the plexiluminum.

"Nikola?"

He lifted his head, then sat up facing her. "Yeah, still here."

Helen moved to open the door to give him her load.

Nikola stood up quickly and held his hand up, palm toward her. "NO! Don't open the door. Please. Just use the little turny thing."

She sighed and did as he asked, using the small revolving door in the wall to pass him everything except one glass of wine she kept out for herself. He took everything, carefully put away the clothes, and looked at the titles of the books. Then he mixed some wine and plasma in a glass. Finally he looked at her.

"To being safe" he said, raising his glass.

"To you getting out of there quickly" she replied.

Nikola shrugged and downed his glassful, while she sipped at hers.

"What do you remember, Nikola? Do you remember the Five?"

"I remember the Polytechnic School in Graz, and my roommate Kosta. I remember reading Voltaire- it almost killed me, one hundred large volumes of small print. Of course I couldn't stop until I had finished. And Anna- I had such a crush on her." Nikola downed another glass.

"I don't believe you've ever told me about her."

"Nothing much to tell, it didn't last long. Father died, I went away to school to the University of Prague, she married someone else. Then, yes, Oxford."

"To Oxford" Helen said, sipping more wine. So he was back to being an adult. Too bad he was locked in a cell.

"It's still a bit fuzzy. But I remember you."

They both drank in silence for a moment. Helen finished her wine, Nikola downed another glass. The bottle was nearly empty.

Nikola looked at her very seriously. "You need to keep me in here. No one is to come in for any reason."

"Nikola, you're not going to hurt anyone."

"You don't know that. I don't know that, there's no way you could."

"For how long?

"Until I know, or until I think of a better alternative." Nikola put his empty glass and the empty bottle in the open slot and slid the turntable around. "Bring me another bottle?"

"Later. You get two bottles a day. That's the only up side to this, you can't raid my wine cellar. All my precious vintages are safe from your predations" Helen teased.

"Your precious vintages are only good, not excellent, and hardly compensation for everything I'm going through here" Nikola said with a small smile.

"We'll get through this Nikola" Helen said, trying to convince herself as much as him.

"Of course we will" Nikola lied back. "Now go away so I can . . . you know, use the facilities."

"Or I could stand here and watch."

Nikola shrugged, turned and started walking toward the toilet. He peeked back over his shoulder as Helen fled.

A/N: Thank you Chartreuseian, Anthro, Nubbins (sorry about what happened to some of your namesakes), Watch Stander, Nayukhuut, and Lorienlief for your reviews/comments.


	17. Chapter 17 The Rift

The problem of what to do with the captured Arrendulics came to a head quite suddenly. One of them announced that he- no, she had been fertilized, and would be due to give birth in a little over four months.

"It was the nubbins, wasn't it" said Will, seated across from Helen in her office. "What are you going to do with them? You can't just let them go; they attacked us and would probably end up attacking someone else."

"It's true, they are quite mercenary and will do pretty much whatever anyone pays them to do. That's why I'm going to hire them" replied Helen.

"What? To do what? You have someone you want them to attack?"

"No, not at all. I'll give you a hint. The Arrendulics are desert-adapted."

The concerned look on Will's face vanished. "Oh, of course, the fairy fish."

"Right. We haven't been able to get accurate data on those in the wild in the deep Sahara; the Arrendulics are perfect for the job. They can do a thorough survey on numbers per school, and the range of each school and the overlap areas where the fairy fish mate. It will help immensely when we have enough of them again to seed new schools into the wild."

"But if the female is going to give birth . . ."

"Her name is Iji. She will be close to Arrendulic populations in Egypt, Libya, and Algeria, and in the desert she will be able to stay away from human beings. We are the Arrendulic's only natural predators. Iji can have her eight to twelve young with her own people and raise them in what is to them an idyllic environment."

"So they get away with attacking us?"

"Unless you want to execute them, or start an Abnormal prison system, there's really little choice."

"We do have Abnormals in permanent custody."

Helen nodded. "We do, but only in extreme cases, and frankly, I hate having to cage any intelligent being. I certainly don't want to imprison a mother-to-be if I can find an alternative."

"What happens once they finish the survey?"

"I expect we will need permanent wildlife experts to monitor the fairy fish while they are so close to extinction, and there are other desert species we should be keeping an eye on as well."

Will nodded agreement. The Sanctuary couldn't hire every needy Abnormal, but in this case the Arrendulics fit a valid requirement perfectly.

"Speaking of caging intelligent beings, how's Tesla doing?"

Helen slumped, and Will could tell the news wasn't going to be good. "He's all right, but he refuses to come out of his cell, and frankly, I think he's going a bit stir-crazy."

"Do you think my talking to him could help?"

Helen gave him a small smile and shook her head. "No, but thank you for the offer. The most difficult part for him is having no outlet for his creative side. I've given him paper and pencil to draw whatever devices he concocts in his head, but he's always been hands-on rather than theoretical when it comes to inventing."

"And you can't exactly fit a lab in one of those little cells."

"No, I can't" Helen said sadly. But then she became all business again. "The Arrendulics have signed a contract with me, and they'll be ready to leave some time this afternoon. Please make sure they have whatever supplies they will require, and a guide to the surface exit closest to their destination."

"Right, I'll take care of it. Anything else?"

"Have you heard back from SCIU?"

"They're set up, waiting for Reena and her buddies to show up. Their clothes and things are still in the apartment, so they'll be back eventually."

"Keep me informed?"

"Sure."

Will left and Helen did too. She hadn't checked on Nikola yet this morning. He had become increasingly agitated over the last three days, and she was starting to worry about him.

She was pleased to see that he had shaved finally; he hadn't for the last three days. Oh, except for his upper lip. He was growing that mustache again, and he had his hair parted down the middle. That wasn't much of a surprise, most of the early pictures of him showed him with mustache and center part, but it just looked so old-fashioned that she hated it. Hopefully it wouldn't last too long.

His cell was a mess. There were dirty clothes, books and papers scattered all over, with a great many crumpled paper balls over by the sink. He had started bouncing them off the walls yesterday, aiming at the sink, but just tossing his successful shots on the floor when he wanted to wash his hands. And he was washing his hands more and more, calculating the volume of his wine and plasma before he consumed it, and insisting on doing everything in threes. His Obsessive Compulsive Disorder was increasing the longer he stayed locked up.

"Good morning, Nikola" Helen said brightly. "I brought you your morning wine, a California Merlot today."

He muttered something about "probably nearly raw" as he took the bottle and clean glass. He opened the bottle and wiped the neck and the glass with a clean handkerchief, poured the glass nearly full, and stared at it. Satisfied with his calculation, he drank it in three gulps and put down the glass.

"Your pigeons are doing fine, but I think they miss you."

Nikola began pacing, kicking papers and books out of his way. Three long steps across the small room, and three back.

Helen was glad she hadn't given him any first editions; everything he had could easily be replaced. But the fact that he was barely acknowledging her presence was worrisome.

"What have you remembered this morning?"

He finally stood still and looked at her. "I remember my lab burning down. I remember Wardenclyffe standing tall against the sky, rotting, until they took it away from me for lack of funds." He didn't accuse her of anything, but the look in his eyes wasn't friendly. "My pigeons are all right? All of them? I want to see the white one with the gray wing tips."

Helen shook her head, dismayed. "You don't have a white one with gray wing tips, Nikola. That pigeon died long ago."

He vamped and threw himself against the plexiluminum, snarling at her. Helen stepped back in an involuntary reaction, but then stepped forward again while he clawed angrily at the barrier.

"Nikola, stop it. Those memories are false, and you know that. Somewhere inside of you is the truth, but you have to look for it."

He stopped, panting, and stepped back. He looked around like he hadn't seen his cell before, and then back at her. She waited patiently, watching the confusion on his face slowly clear.

"Helen?" he said in a small voice, sounding like a lost child.

"That's right, Nikola. It's 2013 now. I shot you in the head, remember? Your memories are rebuilding, but there are false ones, put there by Dr. Petrocelli. Do you remember her?"

He shook his head and turned away, looking at the mess in his cell. "Can I . . . can I have some clean clothes?"

"If you pass the dirty ones to me, and clean up your mess."

Nikola pushed piles of dirty clothes, books, and papers through the turntable to her, not meeting her eyes as he did so. Eventually he had just two books and clean pads of paper, pencils and pens, all lined up precisely on the small table.

"I'm sorry, I don't like living in a mess like that, but this place doesn't have very good maid service" he joked weakly, looking at the floor.

"I'll bring you some clean clothes. Try to remember that some of the memories you have were put there by someone who meant you harm."

He looked up at her. "I know, but everything is sort of sliding around in my head, I can't seem to get hold of anything. I have all these ideas for inventions, but then I realize I already invented them. I don't know what's real anymore, Helen. Help me?"

"Nikola, I can't. No one can help you with what's going on inside your head. You are a brilliant man, you can figure it out."

He just shrugged, looking away again. Then he looked back, squirming a little with embarrassment. "Uh, sorry about before. I don't know why I did that."

"It's all right, Nikola" Helen said while gathering up an armload of clothes, books, and papers from the floor where she had let them fall. "I know that wasn't really you. You were right, you know, to insist on staying in there."

"Yeah. As long as I don't get even crazier from being stuck in this little space."

"You'll be fine, it's just going to take a little time. Now let me get rid of this pile and get you those clothes." Helen took her armload and went back to her own sitting room where she dumped the pile to go through later. The clothes would go to the laundry, but she wanted to look through the papers before recycling them. One never knew when Nikola Tesla would come up with something incredible, and in his current confused state he could easily misplace the idea in what was normally a very orderly mind.

She took his clean clothes down to him and found him looking at himself in a small shaving mirror.

"You could shave that thing off" Helen suggested as she passed his clothes through to him.

He stroked his beginning mustache and shook his head. "It may just be my current mental state, but I like it. You don't?"

"It's a bit out of fashion, and it really doesn't add anything to your appearance."

"Well, I think I'll keep it for now. That way you can read what's going on in my mind by just looking at my face." He smiled at her and she smiled back.

Helen picked up the remainder of the paper scattered on the floor. "I'll see you again tonight with your plasma and wine. In the meanwhile, try to behave."

"Yes, ma'am."

/

Bobby wanted to stop off at an amusement park on the way home, and Reena agreed. Why not, they were in no hurry, and it would take their minds off of the Arrendulics' failure. As long as she was with two people who looked human, Reena could just pass herself off as their somewhat odd-looking child and be perfectly safe.

They stayed overnight in a motel, and in the morning took a side trip to a nearby animal rescue place that had big cats, and then spent the afternoon renting a boat at a nearby park. Another night in a motel, and Reena was getting tired of wandering around, but Bobby and Molly were enjoying it and she wanted to keep them loyal to her after her failure.

The third day they went to a small city and spent the morning shopping. Bobby didn't care for that so much, but Reena and Molly enjoyed it. In the afternoon they saw a couple of movies, and let Bobby choose one of them to make up for the morning of boredom. They went out to dinner in an excellent restaurant, and spent the night in a four-star hotel.

By the fourth day they were all ready to head home. Bobby and Molly had started talking about moving to a new city and getting jobs, and Reena couldn't come up with any reason why not as long as they kept in touch. She didn't have any plans for how she could get back at Magnus, Tesla, and the Sanctuary.

When they arrived home, everything looked normal at first. But when they went inside, men leapt out from hiding and others came through the door after them, trapping the three of them between their well-armed attackers.

Bobby tried to melt and flow away, but they were ready for him and scooped him up in a bag. Molly tried to convince the men she was just a normal human being, and she had no idea the people she was with weren't humans, but the men didn't believe her. Reena just surrendered.

It didn't take Reena long to discover the men were from SCIU. She knew SCIU and the Sanctuary weren't exactly enemies, but they weren't friends either; rivals, perhaps. And perhaps she could exploit that rivalry; perhaps she could turn being captured into an opportunity to get back at the Sanctuary somehow. She went willingly, smiling and chatting with her captors in a friendly manner all the way back to the SCIU facility.

In the end, the people at SCIU listened to her, encouraging her to tell them everything she knew about the new Sanctuary. When Reena started trying to bargain with them, they sent her to the same lab as Molly and Bobby. None of them ever came out again.

/

Helen didn't see Nikola at first when she took him his plasma and evening wine, but then realized he had himself braced in the corner up near the ceiling. When he saw her, he dropped lightly to the floor and came over to the plexiluminum.

"What in the world were you doing up there?" Helen asked as she passed him his meal.

"In the movies ninjas do that, and I just wanted to see if it was really possible. I'll tell you this, it's not easy."

"My, you really are bored."

"Extremely. Wine?" At her expected nod, Nikola poured her a glass and passed it back to her. She always brought two glasses in the evening, and sharing the bottle had become something of an evening ritual. She had a comfortable chair next to his prison, and she sat down and sipped her wine while he lounged on his cot with his plasma/wine combo. If he calculated the volume of his drink, he wasn't obvious about it.

Helen told him about her day, the problems that had come up and what was going on in the world. He asked questions, and she knew from the level of detail he wanted that he really was extremely bored, he usually didn't care that much about anything that didn't directly concern him and his work.

When she had run down with her news, Nikola said "I was thinking, it wouldn't be so bad in here if I could listen to the radio. I know you can't get it down here, but I could probably make a few little changes . . . "

"No, Nikola, you're not rewiring the Sanctuary so you can listen to the radio."

"You could at least run a computer connection down here."

"So future prisoners can surf the internet? You're only going to be here for a short time, you'll survive even if you're bored."

He sighed and poured himself another glass of wine. Helen never took more than one glass, she didn't want to use up too much of his ration. Then Nikola got up and tore a piece of paper off of one of his pads, and put it in the turntable. Curious, Helen got up and took it, half expecting a poem or love note of some kind. Instead, it was a long chemical formula.

"What is this?" Helen asked, surprised and a little disappointed.

"Compound that for me, will you? Ten milligram pills, I think. That should allow me to try different dosages."

"And what, precisely, is this supposed to do?"

"It's supposed to keep me from going vampire; or at least force me back to human in a matter of seconds- too fast for me to do any damage, I hope."

"Nikola . . ." Helen said warningly.

"I know, we tried before when I first became a vampire, but I know a lot more now and I think this will work. And it's not dangerous . . . well it's not very dangerous, and you know me, I'm pretty indestructible anyway." He gave her a flippant grin and drank some of his wine.

"I don't know, it seems risky to experiment on yourself this way."

"Yeah, but it's better than staying in here forever and going completely nuts."

"You're not going to be in there forever . . ."

"You don't know that."

"Neither do you."

"Helen, trust me, I know my own body chemistry. Just mix it up for me. Please?"

She gave in, but said "I'll give you one five milligram pill to start. We're going to take this very slowly, agreed?"

"Absolutely, however you want to do it."

They looked at each other silently for a moment. "Nikola, I really hope this works. If it does, you wouldn't have to stay in there."

"That's the point. If I'm not able to stay in vampire form I can't do much damage no matter how crazy I get. I really, really hope it does too."

"I'll compound it tonight, and we can start in the morning."

"Thank you."

Helen finished her wine quickly, and took the formula to the chemistry lab to create what they both hoped would be a temporary vampire suppressant.

In the morning, they tried five milligrams, but it had no effect. At ten milligrams, Nikola could still vamp for as long as he wanted, the drug just made him feel slow and tired. At twenty milligrams, he went to sleep.

By evening it had mostly worn off. Helen kept the formula even though it had been a failure. One never knew when being able to knock Nikola out might come in handy. They sat sipping wine together, Helen chatting about her day and outside events, Nikola depressed and sulking on his cot.

She could tell he wasn't really listening to her when he got up in the middle of her recitation, fetched a pad and pen, and started scribbling. She went on while he crossed parts of his work off, added notes, and then finally showed her the results.

"Can you read this?" he asked, excitedly.

The scribbled mess was nearly entirely indecipherable; she could tell it was another chemical formula, but that was all. She shook her head. He tore the page off the pad, and re-wrote it for her. When he slid it through the turntable to her, she was pleased to see the formula was written so precisely it looked like mechanical printing in an odd font. When stressed, Nikola's handwriting tended to deteriorate; the precision of the writing told her his mind was clear and focused. He still had the mustache, though.

"You want to try again?" she asked with some reservation.

"Please. I'm getting closer, I know it."

"So you're not sure this will work either."

"Come on, Helen, in for a penny, in for a pound- or is that a dollar?"

"All right, if you insist, but not until the last attempt is completely out of your system."

"It's almost gone now; we can try in the morning."

Helen folded the paper carefully and put it in her pocket. "How is your memory? What do you remember?"

Nikola stalled by taking a long drink of wine, but finally just said "I don't want to talk about it."

"Nikola, I need to know what's going on in your head."

"My head is a very messy place right now. I'm doing my best to ignore it."

"You can't ignore your own mind."

"Well, maybe you can't but I can. Just leave it Helen."

"Fine. At least tell me what year you are up to."

"I remember faking my death, so that was what- early 1943?"

Helen nodded confirmation. "I'll compound try number two and see you in the morning."

The next morning, she was pleased to see Nikola had shaved off his mustache and slicked his hair straight back, definitely a 1940's look. He took the little five milligram pill she gave him and to her astonishment, washed it down with water rather than wine. He really was getting desperate.

Unfortunately, fifteen minutes later he was kneeling in front of the toilet vomiting. He got up and drank a little wine, but that came back up too within minutes. Nikola groaned and lay down on his cot.

"I suppose that means you don't want to try ten milligrams?"

All she got in reply was a piteous moan that actually reassured her. If he was being that dramatic, he wasn't really in any danger. She sat with him a while, until he sat up and reached for the wine again. He drank a very small sip, and it stayed down, so she left him to manage on his own the rest of the day. There wasn't really anything she could do for him anyway, the effects had to wear off on their own.

When she showed up in the evening, he had another formula for her.

"I've got It, I'm sure this is it" he exclaimed as she gave him his dinner via the turntable. He passed her another formula.

"Aren't you tired of experimenting on yourself yet?"

"No, I need to get out of here without endangering anyone. And besides, this is right, I know it."

"How do you know, if you haven't tried it?"

"I just do, I can see how it works in my mind."

"I thought you were ignoring your mind."

"Just the confused, crazy part. The rest is genius, you know that."

Helen rolled her eyes and looked at the formula. It was similar to both of the first two, but had some odd notations that weren't part of any chemistry she had ever seen before. She turned the paper toward him and pointed at one strange part.

"What does this mean?"

Nikola peered at it. "Oh, that means invert the nitrogen molecule. And this part down here means do an ion exchange between the sodium and carbon."

Helen nodded at that, she at least knew what an ion exchange was. "And this scribble?"

"That is not a scribble. I had to make up a notation for reversing the hydrogen. Don't worry, I wrote it all down for you." He passed her three pages of neat, small writing.

"Nikola, I'm not sure I can do this."

"Of course you can, you have to. You're the only hope I have."

Helen took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I'll do my best, but I swear, if this explodes . . ."

"It's not going to explode, at least not if you follow my instructions."

"This will take me at least all day tomorrow."

"Or all night tonight."

"Why should I stay up all night to do this? There's no rush, you're not going anywhere."

"No, but my sanity is. Helen, I don't know how long I can stay in control. And once I lose control, I'm not going to meekly take a pill; I'm going to be tearing apart anything I can reach. You don't want me to go back to that, do you?"

"Of course not but . . ."

"Then you'll have this for me in the morning, right?"

Helen looked him in the eye. "I really don't seem to be able to say 'no' to you anymore."

Nikola gave her a big toothy smile that had double-entendre written all over it. "Good. Then I'll see you in the morning; you bring the little blue pill."

"It's going to be blue?"

"If you do it right."

"I'll see you in the morning, Nikola."

Helen left and enlisted Henry's help immediately. She was stronger in chemistry than he was, but he had worked extensively with Nikola and had at least some experience with how his mind worked. When she explained what she had to do and showed him the formula, Henry became eager to try it even at the cost of a night's sleep.

They only made one error. When they cooled a nice, calm, pale blue liquid as per the instructions, it suddenly turned red and frothed over, spattering the table. Every spatter left pitting behind, and it took them an hour of very careful clean-up to dispose of it. The second time they tried it, they cooled it more slowly and it remained stable.

It was after seven in the morning when Helen finally had a small paper envelope of five milligram pills to take to Nikola. Henry wanted to come with and watch what happened when Nikola took one, but Helen wouldn't let him. His presence wouldn't help any, and if this effort failed too, there was no reason to embarrass Nikola in front of anyone but her.

Nikola was sound asleep when she arrived. She rapped on the plexiluminum to wake him, a little irritated that he slept while she stayed up all night and worked, but the tired, rational part of her knew there was no reason for him to stay up too.

His eyes lit up when she passed him one little blue pill. He popped in his mouth and chewed it.

"Tastes right, although I could have added a little more sweetness" he said approvingly.

"Part of that formula was for the taste?" Helen asked, a little too quietly.

Nikola picked up on her anger immediately, and started to defend himself. "Hey, why should I take bad-tasting pills? The taste part wasn't anything difficult anyway, and besides, I think it's working."

He vamped, scrunched up his face, and stayed that way for a full minute, not moving. Then he de-vamped and said "Give me another one."

Helen passed him a second pill that he ate like the first. He waited a few minutes for the pill to take effect, and then vamped again. This time, he could only hold it for about three seconds. Back to human, he shook himself a bit and smiled.

"Perfect. Open the door."

"Not so fast. We need to see how long the effect lasts and get you on a regular schedule first."

"Aw come on, I've been in here forever. Can't we do that out there? Like, maybe in your suite?" He gave her a suggestive look.

She crossed her arms and just looked back at him blandly. Nikola gave up. "Okay, all right, we'll do it your way. I'll let you know when it starts wearing off. How many pills did you make?"

"Your formula makes thirty, you should know that."

"Well that should be enough to give me time to make more. You didn't have any trouble making it? The cooling process worked properly?"

"No trouble at all." Let him find out about his cooling process himself.

The ten milligrams of medication lasted a little over six hours. Nikola took two more pills, and found his condition stable. He could only stay in vampire form two to three seconds, but he didn't seem to be as happy about it as she had expected. He gestured hopefully at the door, and smiling, Helen let him out.

Nikola walked out, spread his arms wide and said "Free, free at last!"

Helen ignored the drama, wrinkled her nose and said "You need a shower."

Nikola looked down at himself, dropped his arms, and said "You're right. Want to join me?"

"No, I'm going to take a nap, and you need to go make yourself a supply of those pills."

"Helen, you just suck the fun right out of everything."

"Come here, Stinky." She wrapped her arms around him and gave him a long kiss. When they parted she murmured "I've been waiting to do that for a long time."

Nikola leaned in for another kiss, but she pushed him away. "Later, Nikola. I need some sleep and you need to go to work. We can be together tonight, and I'll take the day off tomorrow, I promise."

"Tomorrow" he repeated unenthusiastically. Helen wondered at that a bit, but she was too tired to deal with it at that moment.

Nikola joined her in her suite that evening, bringing a bottle of 1912 Chateau Margau from her personal wine cellar. Seeing the way Helen looked at the bottle, he said "If you didn't want me to drink it, you wouldn't just leave it lying around, right?"

It had been in her private wine cellar that Nikola wasn't supposed to find, but tonight she didn't care. Tomorrow she would worry about finding a new place to secrete her own stock of wine, tonight she was just going to enjoy being with him.

"Did you make yourself a good supply of little blue pills?" she asked while he opened the wine.

"Three double batches, so I have 90 ten milligram pills, plus the remaining twenty-four five milligram pills that you made."

Helen blinked in surprise. "That's a lot of pills, over three weeks' worth. Why so many?"

Nikola just shrugged and poured them each a glass. "The process is long and involved; I don't want to have to make more for a while." There was something about that statement that didn't sound right to her, but whatever it was, she would get it out of him tomorrow.

"You didn't have any trouble with the cooling process?" she asked innocently.

"Of course not." But he wasn't looking at her when he said it, and she smirked a little, knowing he was lying.

They sipped their wine; Helen told him how her day had gone after her nap, and what was going on in the world. He let her, until he finished his glass, then he carefully put it down on a coaster and took her glass from her and set hers down on a coaster as well.

Helen reached over and rucked up his hair into its usual spikiness, the way she liked it, and he loosed hers from where she had pinned it back from her face. They reached for each other at the same time, folding each other into an embrace and kissing each other long and thoroughly.

"I've missed you so much" Helen breathed into his ear during one of their pauses for breath. "Don't talk" Nikola said back, and she didn't, except for some sounds of pleasure later in bed.

When Helen woke in the morning, the bed next to her was empty except for a folded piece of paper and a single flower on the pillow. She frowned, she usually woke before Nikola. Now what was he up to?

She picked up the flower- a michaelmas daisy, which in the Language of Flowers meant- farewell. Farewell? She found she was having difficulty breathing. He wouldn't, would he?

Helen snatched up the paper, unfolded it, and read:

_My Dearest Helen-_

_I can't spend my life taking these pills. They work, but they dull my mind and I can't live like that. I'm going somewhere where there aren't any people so I don't have to take pills and I can work. I will be back as soon as I am sure that it's safe for me to be there with you. Take good care of my pigeons and hold my job open, I'll come back, my Love, I swear it, I just don't know when._

_Love, Nikola_

"Dammit, Nikola, how can you do this to me? How can you go off and leave me? How many years, how many decades will it be this time? You pig, you vampire, you . . . you rotten . . . _man!_" Helen sat alone in her bed and let the tears come.

The End

A/N: Thank you to all who commented and reviewed and encouraged me during this story. Yes, this really is the end; it is called The Rift after all. But we all know Nikola will be back in time. Meanwhile, I'm going to take a break from Fan Fiction for a while.


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